


Supply and Demand

by SeasOfTrees



Series: Checks and Balances Verse [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Established Relationship, Family Issues, Happy Ending, M/M, Modern AU, TW: Illness, TW: Mental Health Problems, tw: injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-07-27 17:13:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 52,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeasOfTrees/pseuds/SeasOfTrees
Summary: When Alex moved to America, he thought he would be able to start all over.When he found a new family and fell in love, he thought he wouldn't have to worry any more.When he offered to do his brother a favor, he thought he would be able to use it as a chance to move beyond his past.Alex was wrong.





	1. Alex Has a Coffee Date

**Author's Note:**

> Yup. Here we are. It took me like 7 months, but I'm finally posting this thing. Eesh.
> 
> Note: To any medical professionals who may be reading this, please kindly disregard all the medical inaccuracies I'm likely going to toss into this story for drama.

It was one of those cafes uncomfortably worked into the grand lobby of a big modern building. Huge windows dwarfed the cheap metal tables that had been placed haphazardly around the space like a frantic afterthought. The tidy little counter in the corner was a defiant rainbow in the grey January light— bags of kale chips in every flavor were lined up like soldiers in a short shelf beside fair trade chocolates and granola bars made of everything but granola. A small cooler boasted an impressive collection of kombucha, aloe water, and small-batch sodas. Two studiously tidy looking employees in matching blue aprons handed lattes and microwaved sandwiches to harried looking professors and students. Classes were likely in session, Alex figured, since most of the uncomfortable looking chairs were empty, and the few occupants scattered about looked like they’d been there a while.

All except one.

Ned Stevens jumped up from his table when he spotted Alex, giving him a nervous little wave and then plopping himself back down by the empty table. 

When Alex made his way over, his oldest friend hopped back up and gave him a hug, his features splitting into a wide, bright smile. 

"Oh my god, Alex. I can’t believe I’m actually looking at you,” Ned said, holding Alex out at a distance for better viewing. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” Alex replied with a tight little smile. “You look good, too.”

And he did. Alarmingly so, really. Alex and Ned had always looked a lot like each other, but the years apart were showing. Ned wore his hair in a precise undercut and his jaw was clean shaven. Muscles he hadn’t had when Alex had seen him last — probably four years ago — bulged underneath a slightly-but-clearly-purposefully-too-tight blue and white checkered print shirt tucked into pressed trousers. Not pants, pants would never cost so much. Those were _trousers_.

“Med school’s been good to you,” he commented.

“Not really,” Ned laughed. “I get maybe three hours of sleep if I’m lucky. But I’m trying to take care of myself.” His smile faded slightly but was back before Alex could comment. “But we really need to talk about your life. Your writing? Your internship?” his voice quieted a little and his smile turned conspiratorial. “Your boyfriend?”

Alex sank down into his seat. “Yeah, been a pretty crazy few months… years…” he corrected.

When Ned had called him the other day, saying he was moving to New York to start his residency, the years of distance settled into Alex’s body like an old ache. There’d been a time when they were inseparable, but that was a while ago. 

Most of it was probably Alex’s fault — he’d always been slow to react to Facebook messages or emails that weren’t relevant to the issues immediately at hand. And he rarely jumped at an opportunity to be reminded of his life in St. Croix. Meeting up with anyone from his past felt a bit like a performance review anyway, but with Ned it was worse. They’d always looked like each other, and since they spent some time under the same roof, the comparisons had flown naturally, comparisons Alex really could have done without. 

Looking at his suspiciously well put-together friend, that old familiar monster reared its ugly green head. He’d spent the first chunk of his life jealous of Ned Stevens, what was the point in stopping now?

“I’m going to get us some coffee, then you’re gonna tell me your life story, alright?” Ned said, jumping up again in whatever fit of manic energy was currently possessing him. “How do you take yours?”

“Black as the pits of hell and as strong as you can get it without signing a waiver.”

“Ah,” Ned clenched at his chest. “Man after my own heart. I’ll be right back.” He darted over to the counter and got in line behind some pompous-looking professor type and a girl with a guitar slung over her arm.

Alex frowned at his friend’s annoyingly toned back. The weird nervousness was not something he’d remembered about Ned. He’d always been the easy-going one. Alex’s relaxed, rich mirror. Had something happened? A knot started to work itself into Alex’s stomach. Well, another knot. He usually had so many things he was worrying about that he was sure his guts probably looked like a cable knit sweater.

He checked his phone while waiting for Ned to come back, typing a quick response to a comment on one of his blogs and answering a text from Thomas. How’s the coffee thingy going? Terrifying as you thought?

Alex smiled a little, warmed despite the chill seeping in through the impractical windows. Just arrived. I think he started going to the gym since last I saw him. More updates to follow.

“So,” Ned said, setting a cup down in front of Alex. “Tell me everything.”

“Uh…” 

Then he did. Alex ran him through a quick account of his last few years, darting back and forth between academic, financial, and social landmarks in an uncomfortable tap dance of. He was trying not to sound too braggy, but also wanted to make it clear that he’d been massively successful. He spoke of his love life in general terms, avoid mentions of cheating on Eliza or faking a relationship with Thomas. Or the terrifying anxiety with John. Really, he kept the mentions of crippling anxiety and depression far, far away from his rundown of the four most stressful years of his life. Ned was smiling, chin resting on his fist, and nodding through the whole thing.

“And... yeah, that’s about it. I’m starting my internship come the new semester and things with Thomas are going well, and…” he shrugged. “Life’s good. Life’s actually really good.” He’d come to that realization a few days before and it had actually made him pause. He wasn’t sure he’d actually ever felt that way before. And part of him was wondering when that other shoe would drop. It always did with him.

“Been in contact with your dad or Jamie at all?” Ned asked. He was fidgeting a lot, Alex noticed. Ned was never _fidgety_. Stevens weren’t _fidgety_. They had tutors to remind them of such.

“Uh… called my dad recently. He’s in Mexico, doing okay. As for Jamie… last time I called him was maybe… two years ago? You know how it’s always been with us. We were never really close.”

Ned nodded and his eyes fell to the table. Yeah, Alex thought. He was definitely keeping something from him. “Well, either way, I’m so glad things worked out for you. You’ve been able to do so much in such a short period of time.”

Alex’s cheeks felt hot. He’d promised himself he didn’t need the validation, but still… “So…” he said, diverting the subject. “How have things been for you?”

Ned gave him a general rundown of the last few years. He’d been in med school himself, not much going on there. Few girlfriends. He also gave Alex a summary of St. Croix life, assuming correctly that he hadn’t been keeping up: who was getting married, who had a kid, where everyone was, who’d died, who was rich now, who was poor. Who lost everything in a hurricane. He was dropping names Alex hadn’t heard or even thought of in years. 

“So… yeah…” Ned trailed off, eyes darting up from the coffee cup he’d been tearing apart. “That brings us up to a few months ago, when I got the diagnosis.”

Alex had been glancing out a window just then, but his attention snapped over to Ned. “Diagnosis?”

Ned took a deep breath. “I… I have leukemia.”

Alex sat up, his body numb. "You… holy shit. I’m so sorry, Ned.”

Ned shrugged, though his casual gesture looked very intentional. “I’ll probably be okay, but I need a bone marrow transplant.” 

“Did your family all check to see if anyone was a match?” 

Ned nodded. “They all did and none of them were, so… look, Alex. I didn’t just ask to see you to catch up. There’s something I wanted to talk about…”

Alex felt colder than he had all day. “Yeah?” 

“You know that rumor? The one that was always going around about us… the one we always ignored?” 

Alex frowned. Ned didn’t need to specify. They had always looked alike. Very alike. Beneath the well-styled hair, Alex could see eyes that looked like his. The clean-shaven chin was shaped like his. Even the well muscled body had the same general frame as his. They could have been brothers. When his mother died and he moved in with the Stevens family, people started talking. How could they not? “Oh, I might of heard it a few times,” he said, voice forced into a cheerfulness he didn’t feel. 

“Well, after I got the results back from my siblings and they were all negative, I asked my father about it, and…” he paused, taking a deep breath and locking eyes with Alex, deep brown and full of hundreds of unspoken apologizes. They’d agreed to never ask. They both knew they were _never supposed to ask_. “He said it wasn’t impossible.”

Alex felt like the floor had disappeared beneath him. Like he’d been sitting on a trap door all his life and had almost managed to convince himself it would never open. “And so you want me to take the test to see if I’m a match,” he said. 

“I know it’s a lot—”

“Of course I’ll do it,” Alex cut in. “Of course,” he repeated, quieter. He sat back in the chair.

“I feel like shit for dropping this bomb on you, but…” he trailed off and there was no need to continue. Alex knew. 

“Your fucking life is at risk, Ned.” Alex bit his lip. "I’m not mad at you… it’s just a lot, you know? I mean, I always suspected…"

And he had, of course he had, how could he not? Especially when he was younger, when he was still angry at his father and the upright, affluent figure of Thomas Stevens was housing and feeding him. How could he not wonder if maybe he’d finally come to is real home? Ugly duckling, finally swimming with the swans?

But now… he was the son of _James Hamilton_. He was blue-ish of blood and successful despite the shitty hand the Casio of Life had placed before him. He’d been a bastard all his life… but this would make him a double bastard, the son of two adulterers. Was he ready for that? 

“Alex… are you okay?” Ned was leaning forward, eyes darting about nervously, searching his.

“I’m fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “Do you have a preferred hospital… do I make an appointment? How does this work?”

Ned’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “I can take care of all of that. There’ll be some paperwork, of course, but I have connections… the process is a bit easier for me than for most people,” he cast a glance down at the table, appropriately contrite looking about his privileges. He was a Stevens after all, things tended to be simpler for him.

Alex just nodded. “Okay. I’ll do whatever you need me too.”

Ned smiled at him, eyes glassy and wet and relieved. “Thank you.”

There wasn’t really anywhere the conversation could go from there, so Alex extracted himself a few minutes later with some mumbled excuse. He promised to have Ned over for dinner some time, to introduce him to Thomas.

He bundled himself back up and stepped out into the cold. The sun was just starting to set. He joined a small crowd funneling itself into the subway. 

God, the weather sucked. He still wasn’t completely used to it. A gust of wind pressed against his back as he started to go down the stairs. His birthday was coming up. Memories of his childhood birthdays were usually of disappointment, but they were of disappointment and heat. Alex was a masochistic man, and one of the little kinks he’d yet to work out of himself was having the weather for St. Croix readily available on his phone. That morning when he’d checked what the temperature was going to be, he was simultaneously informed that it would be 20 degrees in New York, and 77 in St. Croix. In those early moments of the day, his brain — which, despite his efforts, was still set to Celsius — would get excited for New York and wonder why St. Croix was on fire.

And maybe he should have been thankful for the cold, he thought. It was the only thing that could possibly distract him from all the shit that had just been dropped on him.

_Except now you’re thinking about how you just weren’t thinking about it, which leads to more thinking about it and blah blah blah cycles Jesus fucking Christ Ned is dying and my life is a goddamned soap opera._

He was going to have so much to tell Thomas. And also his shrink.

He pulled out his phone as the crowd started to form around the platform, a booming mechanical voice informing him the next train was due in five minutes. Thomas had texted him: 

**Updates?**

Alex started typing up what had just happened, thumbs flying across the until they went numb.

“Oh, excuse me.”

Alex froze. That voice… he knew that voice. But, no. That wasn’t possible.

He looked up, scanning the crowd. No, he told himself, he wouldn’t be here. Alex was just imagining things. The chat with Ned had his childhood on his mind. There was no way…

He looked back down at his phone. You’re going crazy, he thought. The shock of the conversation must’ve been settling in. Because there was no way, in all of New York — in all of the _world_ — that he’d see them both in one day.

A man came to stand by him on the platform, and Alex glanced up from his phone.

_Oh my god._

“Jamie?”


	2. Thomas Does His Reading

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Journal entries from a mentally unstable person. Anxiety. Wasted Soup.

“Thomas! Try this,” Laf said as he jabbed a wooden spoon dripping with some sort of orange-ish substance in Thomas's face.

Thomas shut his book just in time to protect it from the soup (soup? he figured it was probably soup) that was dripping down his lap. It tasted like pumpkin and half the spice rack. "That's... interesting." 

"I'm trying to follow the recipe," Laf explained, gesturing at his phone, which was sitting near a small pool of what looked like melted butter. "But I don't think it's very good. And I tried to substitute some things but..." He licked the edge of the spoon and frowned. "Mmmm."

"I'm not sure I'm the person to ask."

Laf pulled a jar off the spice rack and started applying some sort of red powder liberally to the soup. "So where is Alex?" 

"Off meeting some old friend for coffee," Thomas said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and sending a quick text asking Alex how things were going. "He was really nervous about it. Apparently there's something weird about the situation." 

"Ex-boyfriend or something?"

"I don't think so," Thomas said, though the fact that he didn’t know was sort of unsettling, at least to him. "They haven't seen each other in a long, long time. Apparently they were really close when Alex was young." 

The phone lit up in his hands, announcing the arrival of Alex's response.

**Just arrived. I think he started going to the gym since last I saw him. More updates to follow.**

"That Alex?" Laf jerked his chin towards the phone.

Thomas nodded. "Apparently mystery friend person is swol."

"A good trait for a mystery friend person to have," Laf commented, reaching for a clove of garlic. "Well, unless they're a hostile mystery friend person."

"If they're a friend, how can they also be hostile?"

There was a loud bang as Laf slammed his fist down on the side of his knife to crush the garlic. "Your society days are behind, aren't they?"

Thomas shrugged. "Fair enough, fair enough. Jury's still out on what exactly this one is."

"Hmmmm," Laf tasted the soup again. "I'm sure he'll tell you all about it. Alright,” he stepped back from the stove, hands on his hips, "fuck this soup." 

Thomas stepped out of the way so Laf could pour the failed soup down the drain, and sent Alex another text: **Updates?**

Laf opened the fridge and started examining its contents. "Does chicken sound good? Would you like to help?"

And so Thomas became the unwilling and unskilled apprentice to chef Lafayette, lending his limited knife technique to chopping veggies, his questionable authority to the choice of spices, and his still budding culinary capacity to making the mashed potatoes.

All the while he was waiting for Alex's response to the question -- bumped the button on with his elbow when he was holding raw chicken, checked it before and after turning the stove on.

Alex wasn't replying. That wasn't normal. Even on his busiest days, Alex could be relied upon to get back to him.

He tried to push his concerns to the back of his mind, but they kept crawling back into place. What could have happened? Did something happen? Something with that friend? 

Thomas's internal theater ran showings of every possibility on a loop: he was dead, he froze to death, a car hit him, he'd been arrested, he'd been deported, he ran away, he was in a hotel room with Questionably Hostile Swol Mystery Friend somewhere.

Thomas started mashing the potatoes and tried to ignore every stupid suggestion. It was fine. Alex was an adult. It was fine. He'd get back to him when he had a chance. Thomas wasn't some weird clingy boyfriend who freaked out over tiny shit like that.

He brought the pot from the stove to the counter, and was proud of himself for not bringing his phone with him. He started spooning the potatoes into a bowl.

His phone rang.

Thomas lunged across the kitchen and barely checked the Caller ID before hitting the "accept" button.

"Hey," Thomas said, trying to train his voice to a calmer tone.

“Hey,” Alex’s said. Thomas could hear cars and horns around him. He must've been outside. “So… I ran into my other brother today.”

Thomas’s brow furrowed. “Your… your what?”

“My older brother, Jamie? Remember me mentioning him?” Alex’s voice had that bright, forced-casual tone he used when he was deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

Thomas's face felt cold. Something was wrong.

“Right, I remember. But you said other? I thought you only had the one."

There was a pause. “Wait. Lemme..." a longer pause, the car sounds continued. "Shit. I forgot to send you that text. I've... uh... it's been a long day. Long story. I'll tell you later. Right now we're talking about Jamie."

Thomas frowned. "I'm really confused. Are you saying you have a second brother?" 

"It's complicated.” He sounded tired. "I promise I'll explain later. Can you just like... put a pin it it or something? Jamie doesn't know and... yeah. Jamie's the news of the hour... so... where was I? Oh, right. I ran into him on the subway today, we got to talking. We’re at Ryan’s burger place, do you remember it? We went there once before we started dating? I was wondering if you wanted to join us for dinner.” 

Thomas glanced at the kitchen table behind him, where Laf was setting the roast chicken down on a hot pad. “Uh... yeah. Yeah, I’ll be over in a few. Can you text me the place’s address or name or something, so I can find it?” 

Laf looked up and gave Thomas a confused frown.

“Yeah, of course. Oh. One more thing: don’t mention you’re rich.”

“It’s not like I go around bragging about it, Alex,” he said, eyes narrowed though he knew Alex couldn't see him.

“Noooooooooooo,” the word was drawn out and Thomas could just see Alex's patronizing expression, “but it tends to slip into conversations. Just… it’ll be better if he doesn’t know.”

“Oh...kay,” Thomas replied. The conversation was doing little to calm the nervous feeling that had been building in his gut.

Laf mouthed the words _what are you talking about?_ Thomas waved his question off and turned away. "I'll try not to mention my yacht and the five horses I just bought and all the money I just sank into Bitcoin and the property I just acquired in Dubai — "

"I'm hanging up now — "

"Or solid gold toilet I got your for your birthday."

"I would actually kill you.”

“Good thing I dropped ten grand on that antique katana then…"

"You underestimate me. I would never use something so ostentatious. If I were to murder you, it would be the perfect crime. You know that."

Thomas smiled. "Just like I know you probably have a file on your laptop with your predetermined 20-step plan to kill someone, if it comes to that."

"Don't ever click on the folder titled 'Personal'."

"And here I thought that was where you stashed your porn."

"... don't click on the folder labeled 'Personal_1'. And get your stupid butt over here. If I stay on the phone any longer I'm going to start losing fingers."

The line went dead.

Laf cleared his throat behind Thomas. "What," he said, "the fuck?"

Thomas looked down at the spread. "Uh... so... looks like I'm going out for dinner."

"Seriously?" Laf asked. "After I spend all this time slaving over a hot stove? And what was that about toilets?"

"I have to go meet the in-laws," Thomas said, still looking down at the phone, as if it was going to give him some further explanation of exactly what the fuck it was that was going on.

"In-laws? But he doesn't have any — wait, is his father or his brother here?"

"Brother," Thomas explained. "Or, one of them."

"That doesn't make any sense," Laf said, coming over to Thomas's side of the kitchen. "He only has one brother. Jamie, I think."

"That's what I thought," Thomas said. Alex's text with the address came through. "I'm really sorry, but I've got to go." He grabbed his coat and yanked it on. "I'll catch you up when I have any fucking clue what's going on."

He left the apartment, barely avoiding Hercules, who was just then mounting the stairs.

"Hey," Herc said, barely avoiding him. "Where are you going? I thought we were having dinner."

"Sorry," Thomas said as he darted out the door.

He pulled the thick wool of the coat close to his body and followed the little line on his map through the city. He could barely feel his nose by the time he made it to the diner, the neon signs a warm beacon in the winter evening.

He scanned the crowded dining room for Alex, who stood up and waved. When Thomas slid into the booth behind him, Alex gestured at the man sitting across from him.

“Jamie, this is Thomas. Thomas, Jamie.”

Thomas had rarely given much thought to Alex's older brother, but whatever fleeting image his brain had come up with in the past, it didn't look anything like the man standing in front of him. Jamie Hamilton was tall and thin, and the banged up hands and sinewy forearms sticking out of the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt all hinted a familiarity with manual labor. His hair — long and tied back in a ponytail— was somewhere in that no man’s land between blond and brown. His face was all sharp, blandly handsome angles and had that permanently ruddy complexion fair people tended to develop when they spent too much time in the sun. His eyes, which were a pale blue, held a certain artless ease to them that made Thomas uncomfortable. Visually, he was the opposite of his short, dark, manic baby brother. 

“Nice to meet you, Thomas,” Jamie said with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes slightly. “Alex was just telling me about you.” He had the accent Thomas had only occasionally heard from Alex, when he was too tired or frustrated or horny to shape his words into blandly American sounds.

“Yeah?” Thomas said, raising a playful eyebrow born from years of cocktail-party training. “I’m surprised you still wanted to meet me, then.”

Alex looked like he was about to say something, but then Ryan came around with a tray of food. He set burgers in front of each of them, and put a chocolate shake down by Thomas's heaping plate. 

"It was chocolate that you liked, right?" Ryan asked. 

"Uh, yeah," Thomas said, blinking down at the drink and warmed by simple kindness. "Thanks."

"No problem. Hey, can you take a picture of us? My mum’ll want to see that I met Uncle James’s kids.”

Thomas took the phone obligingly and snapped a handful of photos of the strange trio. Ryan’s smile was genuine as far as Thomas could tell. Jamie’s was mild and friendly, like a celebrity taking photos with a fan. Alex’s lips said “family portrait” while his eyes screamed “please end me now.” 

Thomas handed the phone back.

“Cheers,” Ryan said, flipping through the pictures. “Well,” he said, glancing at the couple sitting down in a nearby booth, “gotta get back to work. We should grab a pint sometime, though, when I’m off duty, before you go back to St. Croix.” 

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed. “We should. I’ll be around a little while.”

Ryan left, waving his phone behind himself in salute. 

"So,” Thomas began, plucking a fry off his plate, “what brings you to New York?”

“I’m here to see a few friends,” Jamie explained breezily, “and take care of a few business ventures. Lots of errands, really."

“He’s actually staying somewhere kinda close to us,” Alex said, stirring his soda with his straw.

"Small world, isn't it?" Jamie laughed, leaning back in the booth and so completely at ease with himself Thomas almost felt he had to draw himself up a bit taller. 

“Yeah, it really is." Thomas said.

The table fell silent. Thomas studied his fries. They’d started seasoning them since the last time he’d been there, he noticed.

“You should let me know when you’re free,” Alex said, scrolling through his phone. “I can show you around New York a bit.”

“That’d be nice,” Jamie said. “Wish I’d come when it was warmer. It was 27 degrees when I left.”

“Oh god,” Alex groaned. “Don’t say things like that to me.”

Thomas frowned, then he remembered. Right, Celsius. He dragged his fry through the little glob of ketchup he’d squirted onto the corner of his plate, feeling embarrassingly American as the conversation flowed, well, maybe "flowed" wasn't the right word. The conversation between the two brothers was like water coming out of a broken tap: a drip here, a spurt there, and then sometimes nothing at all. 

They tried to include him, he had to give them that, but mostly they were talking about people he didn’t know and places he’d never been. 

He found he didn't really mind. He was content to watch them, especially Alex, who’s voice was working its way through a strange cycle — his accent would slowly start to match his brother’s, letters subtly dropping or combining, sentences dipping into and out of French, with a couple phrases he didn’t know at all sprinkled throughout. Then, after glancing at Thomas or asking him a question in some weak attempt to make it a three way conversation, he’d snap back to his "American" voice, and the cycle would start anew.

And when Jamie mentioned Ned Stevens, Alex nodded but didn’t bring up the the fact he’d had coffee with him earlier that day, shooting Thomas a look.

Jamie glanced at Thomas, who trained his expression into neutrality, though his mind was still a mess of unanswered questions. What the fuck had happened at that coffee thing?

Jamie frowned slightly but seemed to shrug the issue off, changing the subject to some distant aunt’s recent wedding. 

For his part, Jamie had a sort of charm to him that Thomas came to understand a bit more through his observation. There was an ease to him so simple and friendly that Thomas felt more relaxed by proxy. Even Alex seemed to release some of the tension in his shoulders.

There was something there, too, and Thomas really wanted to know what it was.

"Hey," Jamie asked at one point, "remember Jason Brown?"

Alex's lip quirked. "How could I forget Jason Brown?"

Jamie threw his head back and laughed, like Alex had said something incredibly funny. "I know I can't, thanks to you."

"Do I get to know who Jason Brown is," Thomas said, leaning in and presenting a grin he hoped was conspiratorial, but probably just looked petulant, "or is it a family secret?"

"He's Alex's first love," Jamie said, eyes bright with mischief.

Alex scoffed, shoulders relaxing for maybe the first time since Thomas's arrival. "He wasn't my first anything."

Jamie let out a barking laugh. "Aww," he cooed, "baby brother's a slut. I'd always suspected."

Thomas felt a jolt move across his body, and wondered briefly if he was supposed to defend his man.

But Alex didn't seem to mind. "Right," he said, rolling his eyes dramatically, "because I'm the only slut in the whole family." A cute little flush had come to his cheeks. 

"Well," Jamie drew his broad shoulders up in a grand shrug that seemed to dismiss all the ills in the world. "What can I say?"

"'No?'" Alex offered. "'I'm sorry, but it's a school night.' 'I'm sorry, but my eleven year old brother is studying in the room next door'?"

"Ah... well..." Jamie shrugged again.

"And I've given up my slutty ways," Alex said, gesturing towards Thomas, "as you can see from my beautiful boyfriend."

"Well I guess that makes me the family slut." He tossed Thomas a quick smile, and winked.

Thomas felt his face heat. "A noble cross to bear," he said.

"Don't say shit like that to him," Alex said. "It'll all go to his head."

"This is true. Anyway, speaking of head... Jason Brown."

"Weak transition," Alex said, wicked smile spreading slowly across his face, "I never went down on him. And right, what's the news there?"

"He got married. Olivia... shit... what was her last name...?"

Alex's eyes widened. "Wait. Olivia LaCombe? Are you serious?"

"Yeah, why?"

"She was my first... well, my first most things. Oh my god they're totally going to compare notes on how I am in bed."

"Aw, don't worry, Alex," Jamie ruffled the top of Alex's head. Alex withdrew quickly and tried to comb his hair back to normal with his fingers, "I'm sure they never think about you."

Alex stuck his tongue out at Jamie, the table laughed, and some other cousin was mentioned. The conversation moved on.

Ultimately the meeting never ventured further than the shallows. Eventually the burgers were gone and the shakes were melted and what conversation was managed had dried up.

The brothers shared a hug, Thomas and Jamie shared a firm handshake, numbers were exchanged, and all parties present agreed that they really needed to do it again sometime, before Jamie left.

Then they went home.

As soon as the door was closed, Alex let his head fall to Thomas’s chest and let out a loud groan.

"So..." Thomas trailed off.

"So," Alex looked rubbed his eyes. "I've got a bit to catch you up on."

-/-

Winter days had a particular knack for dragging, and it was starting to drive Thomas insane. The semester still hadn't started, and no matter how much Thomas stared at the calendar like a child waiting for Christmas, he found he couldn't will the first day of classes any closer. 

Despite all his efforts, more often than not he just spent his days alone in the apartment, trying to find some way to be entertained or useful. The absolute boredom was chipping away at his soul. 

Alex's quick, frantic description of his new found (maybe) sibling and new found problems had been an exciting bump, but even there there wasn't much for Thomas to do but wonder and worry. Alex was looking at lots of very official looking websites those days, and their conversations were starting to involve phrases like "biopsy" and "recovery period."

But there wasn't anything Thomas could do there, either.

And so he found himself on the couch yet again, staring at the ceiling, wondering what to turn his attention to next.

The usual options moved through his mind. Maybe he’d watch Netflix, or do some preliminary research for the next semester, or… 

His eyes darted to his bedroom. 

Or.

It was in the quiet moments he felt it the most, that phantom-limb-tell-tale-heart-radiation-vibe-energy thing. The hyper awareness of the package in his suitcase, in his closet.

The journal. 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t curious. He was desperately curious. Some nights while trying to sleep, Alex sprawled and snoring quietly beside him, he’d stare at the shadow-y corner of his open closet and consider just tearing through the stupid thing. It couldn’t be that long, he’d figured. He could finish it by morning.

But he never got himself to do it. He wasn’t sure why, though there were tons of possible explanations. The fact that his mother left it for him meant that she’d wanted him to read it, and he was angry and petty enough to put it off just to get that little tiny insignificant little satisfaction from disobeying a dead woman's implicit request. Or maybe it wasn’t the right time, maybe he was supposed to take the journal on some cross-country trip with him and meet all sorts of characters and grow as a person then throw it in the Pacific Ocean. Maybe he was supposed to go through it with a therapist present. Or a bomb squad. 

Or maybe he was just scared.

Maybe he should just get it over with.

Later, he wouldn't have been able to discern anything special about the day that he stood up and headed towards the journal. Maybe it wasn't the day, maybe something inside of him just needed to be worn down. He didn't know. 

He was back in his room and rooting through his closet before he could overthink himself back to inaction. He tossed aside some fallen shirts and a few shoes and then the journal was in his hands. He sat back on the floor.

Holding the thing hurt. That tingling he’d felt when first he’d held it was still there, possibly even stronger. He moved a shaking hand to the clasp, fingers toying with the cheap brass. 

“Fuck it,” he said out loud to the journal. The empty room.

He moved to his desk and flicked the lamp on, and opened the stupid fucking journal.

The front page was blank. Thomas clenched his jaw and flipped through the pages quickly. The pages with writing crackled, then about two thirds of the way through the book it was just smooth paper falling silently back into place.

He turned to the second page, glanced at the date. Did the math. She must’ve written it about a month after she left.

_Dear Thomas,_

A tingle ran up his spine and some long buried, ancient, around-the-fire, swore-I-saw-a-ghost instinct made him want to look behind himself. He cast a quick glance into the dull, quiet bedroom, then shook his head. She wasn't there.

He continued reading. 

_We’ve made the decision that you’re better off without me. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again. Or if I want to. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this page, or if I want you to._

_There is so much I don’t know anymore._

_I remember holding you, right after you were born. The way my body tore itself apart for you, then they put you on my chest. For bonding, they said. They do everything in their power to facilitate that link between mother and child. The oldest and most sacred contract there is._

_And here I am, breaking it._

_Maybe one day you will thank me, but I doubt it. I wonder how long I’ll be able to stay away from you. This house feels so empty. There are signs of you all over the place and I don’t like it._

_If I’m not your mother anymore, then I don’t want to think about you._

Then the writing stopped. Halfway down the page the tidy handwriting gave way to nothing. He turned the page.

The next entry was dated a few months later. 

_Dear Thomas,_

_I didn't think of you yesterday. Strange. It's been years since I haven't thought of you. Ever since that little cross appeared on the pregnancy test, you were always in my mind. Every day since then, you've taken up space inside of me, even after you were born, I'd still constantly have to think of you, worry about you._

_What if he's like me?_

_What if he's not like me?_

_What will people think when they see him with me?_

_I stopped being the most important person in my life. And mother's aren't supposed to care about that. I shouldn't be having these thoughts. That's why I can't be your mother. That's why I'm not your mother any more. I can't._

_Would you understand? Do you still love me? Has a day past when you haven't thought of me yet? Will that day ever come?_

_I don't want you to think about me anymore._

_I don't like the idea of being someone you know._

Thomas sat back. "Jesus," he muttered under his breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Like me? What did she mean,like me?

Thomas heard the door open, and slammed the book shut.

Alex came into the bedroom shortly after, and Thomas hadn't moved much. He was staring at the journal, it's worn leather cover. Words repeated themselves in his head.

Like me, like me, like me, like me.

What will people think when they see him with me?

"Hey babe," Alex said, wrapping his arms loosely around Thomas's shoulder. "What're you... oh shit."

Thomas let out a little broken breath.

"You read it?"

"I read part of it," Thomas corrected.

"And it...?"

"Wasn't great," Thomas said. He pushed the journal away. "It wasn't great."

"Shit, do... do you want to talk about it?"

Thomas didn't reply immediately. Something heavy had fallen over him. His brain felt full of water, and moving a thought from one place to another was like trying to carry something at the bottom of the sea, like his muscles all strained under his thoughts. If he tried talking, would he feel like he was drowning?

"We don't have to," Alex said, voice barely above a whisper. 

"Maybe later," Thomas said after a while.

And Alex nodded, and they tried to go about a normal evening -- dinner, cuddling, some TV before turning in. And slowly Thomas watched Alex come to understand that"later" wasn't going to happen that night. They went to bed with little conversation, and Thomas felt a creeping dread. But even as he wondered if he would be happier if he just got rid of the journal and didn't let his mother's words effect him, he was also desperate to read what else she'd written.

He stared at the dark shape of the journal on the desk, unmoved all evening. He couldn't tell how much time he spent there, just staring at it. Eventually whatever was holding him in place gave.

He slid out of the bed and grabbed the journal.

He crept out of the bedroom and turned on the lap by the couch. He started reading again.

_Dear Thomas,_

_I can't believe I did this. What was I thinking? You're my son. I'm a mother. I'm disgusting and I deserve to die. I'm going to call Peter tonight. He'll take me back. I'm still his wife. I'm still your mama. You're still young enough, maybe you'll forget all of this. It's going to be okay. I'm going to be the mother you deserve._

Thomas tried to cough away the nervous lump in his throat, and turned to the next page, dated the next day.

_Dear Thomas,_

_I hate you. There. I said it. I hate you. I hate that you make me feel guilty. I wish you were never born._

Thomas threw the journal across the room. The book made contact with a clock hanging on the wall and the two feel to the ground with a crash.

The lights in both Alex's and John's rooms turned on.

They both came out of their respective doors at around the same time, looking at Thomas with twinned expressions of concern and confusion that would have been adorable in any other circumstance.

"I'm sorry," Thomas said, pulling himself up from the couch and picking the clock up. It was broken.

Alex's eyes were trained on the journal. "Upsetting entry?" he asked.

"Yeah," Thomas said, thumb playing with the edge of the broken plastic covering half the clock's face. "I... I'll replace it. The clock, I mean."

John, who was looking very confused about the whole situation, just nodded. "Uh... thanks? Or no problem," he rubbed the back of his neck, "or whatever it is I'm supposed to be saying. Are you okay?"

"No," Thomas answered, picking the journal up. His skin buzzed with the unpleasant sensation of touching the thing. "But I'll be okay. I promise I won't break anything else, I think."

John looked down at the journal. "What... is that?"

"Oh, it's... uh..." Jesus, had they never actually bothered to tell John? "It's my mentally ill dead mother's journal."

John drew back slightly. "Oh, I see. I... uh. Shit. Yeah." He cleared his throat. "I'm... sorry?"

Alex was uncharacteristically quiet. His eyes were still trained on the book. 

John continued to try to come up with the polite or kind thing to say. "Is there anything you want to talk about... or...?"

"No," Thomas said. His mind still felt like it was at the bottom of the sea. Suddenly he just wanted to be alone. "I think I'm just going to try to get some sleep. Or something."

He stepped towards the door and Alex moved out of his way.

"Okay, goodnight," John said after him.

"Goodnight," Thomas replied, tossing the journal back on the desk and crawling into the bed.

Alex turned the lights off and moved into the bed beside him. He pressed a kiss to Thomas's shoulder. "Goodnight," he whispered against his skin.

Thomas didn't turn over. The water was closing in and he couldn't find his own thoughts. "Goodnight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what milkshakes are to everyone.


	3. Alex Gets To Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Smut. Weird pastries. Vaguely bad dreams.

It wasn’t a bad dream, per se, at least the bits of it he could remember. His brother — Jamie — had been there. Maybe his father? And his mother. And lots of water. Lots and lots of water. Maybe it was even good, or would have been if he hadn’t woken up with a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, an creeping sense that something was wrong. 

He reached over to Thomas’s side of the bed, but his fingers landed on cold sheets.

Alex blinked his eyes open, looking around the dark room for any sign of his boyfriend. There was a tiny strip of light under the door to the living room.

Alex frowned and checked his phone, ignoring the notifications and emails and squinting at the time. 3:21 in the goddamned morning.

Alex slid out of the bed.

“Thomas?” he blinked against the lamplight in the living room, eyes trained on the notebook is his boyfriend’s hands. “Is everything okay?” 

“Hmmm?” Thomas shut the notebook and set it down on the coffee table. “Yeah, yeah. It’s fine, just… I just couldn’t sleep. The journal… I just wanted to read some more of it. I think I’m done for now.” He picked the journal up. “I’m going back to bed." 

He walked past Alex, into the dark cavern of their room. Alex went to shut off the light and followed him in.

Thomas was already on his side facing the wall when Alex got back.

“You… you’re sure you’re okay?” Alex asked, resting a hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

"I... don't know," Thomas said. "I don't really want to think about it right now." 

"Alright," Alex said, settling onto his side. The dread from the dream was still there, heavy in his chest. He tried to breathe it away, but found himself staring up at the ceiling, thoughts moving through their cycles, until eventually he managed to drift off to sleep. 

-/-

Alex checked the door number against the email on his phone and tried the knob. It was already unlocked.

Inside was a small, cramped office with two desks. Behind one of them was a slick looking man with a shaved head. He glanced up at Alex and his face split in a charming smile. “Are you Alexander Hamilton?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Alex replied, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Are you Aaron Burr?”

“Despite all my efforts,” he replied, standing and extending his hand. “Nice to meet you." 

Alex shook it. “Likewise. And here I thought I was going to be the early one. The semester doesn’t start for nearly two weeks.”

“And yet, here we are.” Another smile.

“Here we are,” Alex echoed. He took the unoccupied desk and sat himself down. 

Aaron returned to work, fingers clicking daintily away at his MacBook. Alex set out his things: the binder of research he’d already compiled, a handful of notebooks, and, of course, his laptop.

The silence of the room was broken when he took the old, clunky thing out. The fan kicked in and Aaron looked up in brief alarm before setting his eyes back on his screen. Alex felt heat pool in his cheeks. He’d always taken a sick sort of pride in making the laptop last as long as possible, but she was getting on in years and it really was starting to get ridiculous…

_Yeah, but it still works, don’t be stupid._

At one point about five minutes into working, Aaron pulled out a set of earbuds. Alex tried to deep breathe the flush out of his cheeks.

They worked without speaking, and it started to feel competitive. Not actually a race, but that sort of bullshit contest you end up in when you’re brushing your teeth at the same time as someone else. No one wants to be the first person to stop.

Experimentally, Alex got up to make coffee. He held up the empty pot as a question and Aaron said, “yes, please,” sitting back from his work. 

The old machine bubbled and hissed, and though Alex meant to go back to work while it brewed, he found himself focusing on the slow trickle of coffee into the old, browned pot. He blinked himself back into reality when the grumbling machine stopped, jolted like someone falling out of a dream.

God, he needed more sleep.

“So,” Alex said setting Aaron’s mug down on his desk, “where’d you go for undergrad?”

“Princeton,” Aaron replied, in the studied casual tone of someone who went to Princeton. “And you?”

“Columbia,” Alex replied, in a similarly distracted voice. Mostly because he was back at his desk and in the process of opening two tabs and googling the acceptance rate for both schools. _Princeton, 7.1%. Columbia, 6.6%._ His lips quirked upward without his permission and he took a sip of his coffee to conceal them. It was simple curiosity, that was all — and maybe the fact that he’d gotten wait listed for Princeton.

_Jesus Christ, calm down._

“Is that an accent I’m detecting?”

_Motherfucker._

“Maybe,” Alex replied, “I’m originally from the Caribbean. I moved stateside when I was a teenager. I’ve tried to get rid of my accent, but it comes out sometimes.”

“Why would you want to get rid of it?” Burr asked. “It sounds so exotic.”

_Is he flirting with me?_ “Makes it a bit easier to fit in,” Alex said with a shrug. 

"To each their own, I guess."

-/-

“I hate him,” Alex said.

“You barely know him,” John countered, shooting an alien behind Alex’s back.

“Thanks,” Alex said, slamming down on kill button of his controller. “I know him enough to know I hate him. The man has no opinions. None. How the fuck do you live for not one but two whole decades without formulating one goddamned opinion? Someone should check his brain.”

John’s half of the screen went dark. “Aaaaaand I’m dead,” he said, tossing his controller aside. “Is that your only problem with him? That he doesn’t have any opinions?”

“I don’t trust people who don’t have opinions,” Alex said, shooting down a row of aliens. “That means they have too many secrets. He probably has a Russian prostitute hacked up and stored in big plastic bags in his freezer. I asked him what he thought about how Brexit was going to affect the UK’s economy, and you know what he said?”

“I tremble in anticipation."

“He said that it was too early to say.”

“The monster." 

“He said there were too many factors, which is the typical response of a person with no clue what they’re talking about.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” John's arms crossed and his face was trained in that reasonable, patient expression they took on when they were playing devil's advocate for each other. “So what are you gonna do about it? Dangle him by the ankles off the top of the building until he develops a strong stance on the future of the pound?" 

“That’s the thing,” Alex said, setting his controller aside as aliens overtook his avatar, “he has opinions. I’m sure he does, he just doesn’t say anything. He’s certainly smart enough. The fucker went to Princeton.”

“Aaagh, New Jersey.”

“Thank you.”

John inclined his head.

“How am I going to spend an entire year with someone who isn’t willing to give his opinion on anything?”

“Maybe make it your goal to get as many as you can. Keep a notebook and really conspicuously take notes whenever he says anything that sounds even vaguely like an opinion. Oooh! Or keep a white board. Really make it awkward.”

“I was thinking of keeping chocolates in my desk and handing him one whenever he makes a value statement." 

“Good call. Pavlov him into being an interesting conversationalist.”

Alex laughed, ignoring the pit of dread he still sometimes felt around John. Things were better between them. Not perfect, just better. 

John held his smile for a little while, then his eyes went back to the screen. “Another game?”

“Sure.”

-/-

Alex hit the last period of the article with a sharp flick of his finger, smiling as he saved the document. He switched over to his to-do list and checked the little box next to the working title, then opened a new document. He started hacking away at Article Eight.

The workload for the internship was proving to be even heavier than he’d thought, so he’d had to rework the rest of his schedule. He’d started dedicating a morning each week to batch writing articles. He’d go to his old perch at Laf’s cafe, pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist, and beat the words out of himself in a hyper-caffeinated frenzy.

A figure sat down across from him. His sleep deprived state meant that he was lagging just as much as the ancient computer in front of him, so it took him a moment to jump back in surprise and look up to see exactly who was popping his work bubble.

“Jesus, Alex,” Jamie said, eyes bright with amusement. “It’s just me.”

“S— sorry,” Alex said, running his fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t expecting you.” He shut his laptop.

And he hadn't been. Alex hadn't been thinking about Jamie very much recently. He'd been fairly good at not thinking about Jamie, working him fairly far down his list of worries (by his estimation, he thought about Jamie slightly less often than the end date on his student visa and slightly more than the Yellowstone volcano.)

“I sent you a text letting you know I was in the neighborhood,” Jamie said, jerking his chin in the direction of Alex’s phone.

Alex glanced over at it, clicked it on. “Right. Sorry, I was sort of…" 

“In the zone, yeah. And, holy shit…” he looked down at Alex’s computer. “You still have that thing?” He ran his finger along the old plastic side, “I remember you getting it. Thomas Stevens bought it for you, right? For your fifteenth birthday?”

Alex resisted the urge to pull it away from his brother’s touch. “Fourteenth,” he corrected. “Fourteenth birthday. It still works fine.”

Jamie smiled down at the old thing. “I’d imagine. It survived a hurricane, didn’t it?" 

Images of murky water, drowned bodies, people heaped in cheap canoes and rowboats flashed through Alex’s mind. He pushed it away, back to the list.

“Yeah,” he said, “it did. But that’s just because I’d had it in my backpack when we went to evacuate. I lost most of my books.” He remembered coming home to a floor covered in the pulpy corpses of the small stockpile of books he’d built over the long years of his childhood.

Jamie nodded, face suddenly somber. “I remember." 

“Yeah…” 

“All my CDs went missing,” Jamie mused. “Most of my clothes were all moldy. My bed,” he wrinkled his nose. “And all the fucking looting...”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “The Stevens lost a lot of the silver and stuff. Someone got in. I’d forgotten about that.”

Jamie looked at Alex for a long moment. “I mean," he said, eyes drifting across the room, "It was a while ago.”

“Not long enough,” Alex said to no one in particular.

Jamie let out a little amused huff, and looked like he was about to say something, before being interrupted by Laf coming around with the coffee pot. “Fill up?”

Alex's gut twisted. World's colliding, constantly colliding. Or maybe that wasn't the right metaphor. Jamie wasn't his own world, he felt more like an asteroid hurtling towards Alex's. “Thanks. Jamie, this is my friend Lafayette. Laf, this is my brother, Jamie.”

“Ah,” Laf said, “I’d heard you were in town. Nice to finally meet you.”

Jamie shook his hand and returned the sentiment.

“Anything I can get for you? On the house.” 

“Oh, uh, coffee would be lovely, thank you.”

Laf nodded and turned to get a mug.

“Got yourself a sweet little set up, don’t you?” Jamie asked laughingly as Laf returned with a mug, pouring the coffee in mid-air. 

Alex shrugged. “You could say that.”

“Thank you,” Jamie said as he took the mug.

Laf smiled. “So what brings you to New York?”

“Just had a few things to take care of,” Jamie replied with a smile that had, at times Alex could remember well, functioned as an actual out of jail free card. “And seeing baby brother is always a bonus,” he went to ruffle Alex’s hair, and Alex leaned out of his reach, glaring at him. Jamie just maintained his finest Hamilton grin.

Dolley and Angelica came bursting out of the kitchen, the former dodging customers and maneuvering a bright pink pastry box through the crowd.

“I heard Alex’s brother was here!” She announced as she approached the table, setting the box atop Alex’s ancient laptop.

Jamie blinked at the introduction of two new people. They were his favorite type, too: attractive female people. “You heard correctly. James Hamilton." 

Dolley took his hand. “Dolley the baker. As you can see,” she gestured at her apron.

"And Angelica, the not baker," said Angelica.

"You aren't a baker either?" Jamie said, leaning forward with charmingly false excitement. "Guess we have that in common."

Angelica let out a little laugh, quick and neutral. "You really don't look the way I imagined," she said, looking between Alex and Jamie. "You sure you're brothers?"

Uncomfortable heat seared of Alex's skin. "That's what they told us," he said with a teeth-clenching smile. "Always thought I was far too handsome to be related to that... thing," he gestured at Jamie, who clutched his chest. 

The weak insult just made Jamie's smile grow stronger. "That cuts deep, Alex. That cuts deep." He eyed the pastry box. "So are you giving Alex free cake too?"

"I brought experiments," Dolley explained, eyes darting between the brothers. "Some new recipes I want to test out before we give them to the public. Looks like I have two guinea pigs today."

“Thanks, Dolley,” Alex said, opening the box and thankful for the distraction. A strange assortment of pastries were packed inside. “Anything I should be worried about?”

“How much do you like dragon fruit? And jalapeños?”

“Together?”

"Maybe.”

Jamie cast a worried glance over the spread of pastries, then his phone dinged. He looked at it, slipped it into his pocket. “Aw, shit,” he said, tossing back the rest of his coffee and standing. “I’ve got to go. Nice to meet all of you.” He waved at them and wasted no time moving towards the door.

Alex, Laf, Angelica, and Dolley stared at the place he'd been.

“Does he do that often?” Laf asked. 

Alex shrugged. “I don’t really know what he does,” he admitted. He picked up a Danish with a pink filling, sniffing it. 

“Huh,” Angelica said. “And... he’s a doctor?”

“What? Oh, no… that’s my friend, Ned. Jamie is… something else.”

“So like 70-30 he’s on his way to a drug deal?" Dolley asked.

Alex snorted, but a small tingle ran across his skin. “I… I mean, probably not?”

“40-60?” Laf suggested.

“This one pistachio?” Alex said, picking up a green turnover. 

“Guess you’ll just have to find out,” Dolley said with a smile, though her eyes were worried. “I thought Ned was your brother?”

“Ned might be my brother. Jamie is my brother,” Alex explained. “It’s complicated.”

The three of them glanced at each other. “Alright," Angelica said.

“And it would be better if Jamie didn’t know about the whole Ned business… at least not until it’s sorted.”

“Sure,” Dolley said. “I’ve got no problem keeping your dirty little secrets."

Angelica and Laf made sounds of agreement.

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. He gave serious consideration to breathing. “Right. Thanks.”

-/-

Thomas’s thumb ran small circles across the skin of Alex’s arm. His gaze was trained on the ceiling. They’d turned the lights off, but neither of them had fallen asleep yet.

“Did you read any more of the journal today?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, voice distant. “I read another entry. I think I’m just going to read one per day. They’re… they’re a lot.”

Alex pressed himself in closer. The questions he wanted to ask moved through his mind like fish swarming a reef. He reeled one in, a safer one. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Mmmmm?” 

“I mean… it doesn’t seem like it’s a very pleasant experience for you," Alex said.

“You aren’t wrong,” Thomas said with a small, huffing laugh.

“So why not just read it all at once, get it over with?”

Thomas tensed under him. “I think that might kill me.”

“Wouldn’t reading it slowly do the same thing? But only, like, more painfully?”

“Maybe. But I literally do not think I could get through the whole thing at once. I haven’t been able to stomach it for more than like fifteen minutes yet.”

“Oh,” Alex said, because there wasn't else he could say.

“It’s like iocane powder. I need to develop a tolerance.”

Alex smiled despite himself. “I still can’t believe you hadn’t seen the Princess Bride before I made you watch it.”

“I still maintain that Westley should have told Buttercup to fuck herself and gone off with Inigo. They were much more compatible."

"They had chemistry," Alex conceded, "but I don't think they would have been good long term. They're both too broody. Inigo with his drinking and revenge problems, Westley with his grudges."

"But imagine all the healing they could do. And also the sex. They could do so much sex."

"They could do a lot of sex," Alex admitted. 

"And Inigo got his revenge at the end. All he needed was someone to help him move on."

"And Westley was the person to do that? Goes to sea, is assumed to be dead, then gets all butthurt when the girl who'd thought he was fucking dead for years gets engaged to someone else? That's the man you believe will teach Inigo the finer points of moving past misfortune?"

Thomas scoffed. "And you think he's moving towards a healthy relationship with Buttercup? What do they have in common except staring obsessively into each other's eyes? He's going to get bored of her and they're going to make a few kids and start a decades long career of hating each other. Also he threatened to fucking hit her. Man's an abusive prick."

"If he's an abusive prick, why do you want him with Inigo? Far as I'm concerned, fucker can go die alone on his stupid pirate ship and dedicate himself to pleasuring his own right hand."

"You need to teach me your technique if you've managed to bring sexual pleasure to your right hand."

"Oh," Alex said, pressing a kiss to his throat, "there's so much I could teach you.”

Thomas cocked his eyebrow. “You teach me? Honey, I’m not sure you understand how this dynamic works.”

“Aww, _honey_,” Alex cooed, pulling Thomas’s lips down to meet his. The kiss was slow, languid, easy. Thomas’s hands went to Alex’s hips and pulled him up on top. "Have you actually deluded yourself into thinking you're in charge here?"

Thomas just smiled and ground his hips into Alex.

Alex made a pleased little sound as their crotches pressed together. He kissed Thomas with a fervor, moving against him. Thomas hissed, finger’s digging into Alex’s ass. “Fuck.”

Alex smiled against his lips. He trailed a hand down Thomas’s front, across the smooth, soft skin and the muscles, down through the coarser hairs below his navel, into the low-slung flannel pants he’d worn to bed. Thomas was half hard when Alex took him in his hand and started stroking. Thomas pressed up into his hand, sighing. Alex ran his thumb along the tip and twisted his hand on the way down, enjoying the familiar sensation: warm, hard, urgent. Alex smiled against Thomas’s lips as his boyfriend’s cock grew harder under his attentions.

Thomas pulled Alex’s sweatpants down with a yank and tossed them aside, hand wrapping around his hardness. His fingers were deft and quick, playing with Alex’s foreskin and squeezing him more tightly than most of his previous lovers dared. 

Alex gasped.

“You really do like it rough, don’t you, darlin’?” He trailed his hand down to Alex’s balls and gave them a sharp squeeze, forcing a yelp from Alex’s lips. “Gonna have to bend you over something and fuck you properly soon, aren’t I? Maybe that fancy new desk you got at your internship?”

Alex’s cock twitched at the thought. The mental image of Thomas taking him on his desk made him ache, tightening the familiar coil. He sped the hand he had wrapped around Thomas in retaliation, smirking into his boyfriend’s gasp. “Bet you wouldn’t last ten minutes if you had me like that,” Alex gasped, hips pumping into Thomas’s fist.

“Try not to challenge me, darlin’,” Thomas replied, “you’ll only embarrass yourself.”

As with every other time they fucked, it wasn’t a competition, but it was. They were both trying to get the other off first, pretending to be unfazed by the skilled ministrations of their partner. Traded jabs between moans and gasps. Hands working fiercely to pleasure each other while pretending they were putting in no effort.

Thomas came first, in the end. He stilled against Alex, hot ropes of cum hitting both of them in the stomach as he finished. Alex wasn’t far behind, though. A few more tugs and he was spilling onto the mess in between them.

Alex slumped to Thomas’s side. They panted together in the night air for a moment before Thomas spoke again. “I’m not going to forget that challenge, by the way.”

“Mmmm?”

“About the desk? I’m sure I can last at least eleven. Could probably get you off in five.”

Alex laughed. “You’re on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what low acceptance rates are to braggy Ivy League students.


	4. Thomas Goes Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief homophobic language.

“His birthday's Friday? And you’re just starting shopping now?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, shrugging. “I’ve… had a lot on my mind.” The knot that had been tied in his stomach when he’d first opened his mother’s journal had yet to undo itself. He carried it no matter what he did or where he went. Even just then, wandering a book store with Dolley, he could feel it.

“Trouble in paradise?” Dolley prompted.

“Just some… personal stuff.”

Dolley looked at him for a long moment. “Alright, so either you're fighting over money or you have ED.”

Thomas gave her a look.

She shrugged, jostling the shelf of romance novels she'd been leaning against. “So do you know what you’re going to get him?”

"A book.”

“Ah!" She clapped, somehow sarcastically. "Well you’ve come to the right place. Got any more specific ideas?”

“No fucking clue.”

“Great,” she stepping away from the wall. “Lets see what we can see.”

They wandered the shelves, pulling books out and making suggestions to each other. None of them seemed the right fit to Thomas.

“I don’t know if he’d like that,” Thomas said for the twentieth time, not that he was keeping count.

Dolley put the rejected book back on the shelf. “Well, it would help if you gave me some pointers. Or maybe you should get him something better.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, rich guy. Use your imagination.”

Thomas sighed. Shrugged. “He likes books.”

"Sure,” Dolley conceded, turning a corner and tapping a nail against a glossy spine, “he probably also likes Ferraris.”

“I don’t think he has a license. And I don’t know if he’d like me giving him something too extravagant… I don’t know.” He flipped open a book and started reading the inside of the dust jacket. “How’re things with James?”

“Nice swerve,” Dolley said, eyes just visible above the line of books. “Things are fine.”

Thomas looked up, stirred by her strange tone. “Just fine?”

“Good. Great. Fantastic. Mindblowing. Orgasmic. I’ll never be the same. My soul has changed colors.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, too fast.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Things are fine, really,” she said after a moment. Her eyes moved away from him and back to the titles. “It’s more just that I’m worried about things down the line.”

“What are you worried about?”

She bit her lip. “I’m kinda scared he’s going to get bored of me.”

Thomas frowned. He had a lot of words he’d use to describe Dolley — not all of them were positive — but none of them were boring. “What makes you think that?”

“He’s the smartest guy I’ve ever dated. He seems to know shit about everything. And I’ve got a GED and two years of culinary school under my belt. Sometimes I feel too dumb for him.”

“You aren’t dumb, Dolley.”

“I know that,” she said, pulling a book off the shelf. “I’m just worried I won’t be able to keep up. I love listening to him talk about history and philosophy and art, but I don’t feel like I have much to add. I’ve started going to the library again because I realized it’d been forever since I’d actually cracked a fucking book… it’s just an old insecurity,” she said, interrupting herself, “I wanted to go to college but it didn’t make sense for me financially, so I went into baking. I like my job, but it isn’t exactly stimulating.”

“Did you ever think about going back to school? Even just for fun?”

“I couldn’t afford it.”

“I could cover it for you.”

She blinked. “You’d… are you seriously offering to pay my tuition?”

“Why not?” Thomas shrugged. “I can afford it. If you want to get your bachelor’s or something, I’d be happy to help you out.”

“That’s… uh,” she cleared her throat. “Wow… I’ll have to think about that but… thank you. That’s really sweet and — holy shit,” she ducked behind the shelf. “Alex.”

“Hmmm?” Thomas glanced behind himself and slipped behind Dolley. “Fuck.”

“When’d he get a hair cut?”

“Hair cut?” Thomas glanced around the corner at the man he’d assumed was Alex. “He didn’t… unless he got one this morning without telling me… and shaved… and bought new clothes… and got a new bag… that’s not Alex.”

They both straightened up. “Oh,” Dolley said. “You’re right. But he really, really looks like him.”

She was right. The man browsing the bestsellers shelf could have been Alex’s twin brother. He turned around and became aware of the two people gawking at him.

“Uh…" he said in a clipped accent just this side of Alex's, "can I help you?”

“Oh! Uh, sorry… it’s just that you look a lot like someone I know.”

“Ah,” he said, tucking a book into the crook of his arm. “I see. Guess I’ve got one of those faces.”

Thomas was certain he didn't. “I’m sorry, but is your name Ned Stevens?”

The man took a step back, eyes widening in shock. “It is. How did you know?”

“My name is Thomas, Thomas Jefferson? I’m Alex Hamilton’s boyfriend.” He held out a hand, smiling. “Nice to meet you.”

“Oh,” he said, shoulders relaxing and he shook Thomas’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“I’m Dolley, by the way,” Dolley said, holding her hand out. “I provide Alex with like 40% of his daily carb intake.”

Ned shook it. “A… baker?” 

“No,” Dolley said, “I’m a farmer. We just put Alex out to pasture after he’d reached his daily word count. The hay keeps the caffeine from killing him.”

Thomas elbowed Dolley slightly. “She makes the best cupcakes on this side of the East River.”

“And if you brought one over to the other side, they’d be the best ones there, too. Have some respect for my craft, Jefferson.”

Ned was watching the exchange like a tennis match. “Funny you ran into me,” he said, “I was actually here to buy Alex his birthday present. He’d mentioned this book the last time I saw him, so I thought I’d get him a copy.” He held up a thick white book Thomas had seen advertised in a few places. It was a history-type book by an eminently respectable author with a pretentious-looking cover pulled from an old photo. Thomas’s stomach knotted tighter. He would have never thought to have gotten him that.

“We’re here for the same thing, actually,” Thomas said. "I'm trying to find him something... perfect." The sentence fell flat even to his own ears. Jesus, he must have looked like a drip.

“Ah,” Ned said, smiling with that polite smile Thomas had mastered as a child. The lawn-party, best-manners-or-no-dessert type smile that usually means 'I come from money.' "What were you thinking of getting for him?"

"It's a surprise," Thomas said smoothly with a similarly bourgeois smile. 

"Ah, that's no fair. You already know what I'm getting him," Ned replied, gesturing at the tome under his arm as if Thomas had forgotten about it.

"You played your hand too soon," Dolley said with a smile. "Not our fault."

Ned hugged the book close to his... surprising toned chest. Jesus, Alex hadn't been lying. Thomas had the uncomfortable privilege of seeing what Alex would have looked like if he hadn't spent two decades as, well, _Alex_.

"Ah, well, no one to blame but myself for that, I suppose," Ned said goodnaturedly. "Good luck with your hunt. I need to go back to the hospital. And remind Alex that he promised me we'd go out for drinks some time, yeah?"

Then he walked away, warm and easy as a tropical breeze.

“I think I like him,” Dolley said as they stood there dumbly, watching him hand the cashier his credit card.

“Alex always said good things.”

“Would you have thought to get him that one?” She gestured towards the shelf, which had several more copies of the book on it.

"No,” Thomas said. “Would you?”

“If I had, we would have been out of here an hour ago. Fucker knew exactly what he was looking for. Must’ve taken him five minutes.”

“It isn’t a competition, Dolley,” Thomas sniffed.

“No,” she agreed, arms crossed, head cocked. She looked at him. “But we’re still gonna find something better, right?”

“Obviously.”

-/-

He’d taken to reading the thing in the mornings, to get it out of the way.

This one was dated two years after she left him. A four month gap from the previous entry.

_I think of you a lot. Too much. Sometimes I feel like you’re just in the other room, like you’ll come running in and tell me about the seashell you found or the book you read, or you’ll ask me to cut the crust off your sandwich. Do you still get the crusts cut off your sandwich? There are so many milestones I’m missing and yet I’m mourning the one where you stop asking me to take the crust off of your sandwich. You’d be ten now. How are you?_

_Have you started falling in love yet? Have you started seeing girls as more than annoyances?_

Thomas flinched.

_Or boys? _

Thomas’s breath hitched.

_When you were six, you told me you thought Cole Rogers was pretty. And I told you to keep that to yourself. I was terrified you’d be gay. So many things go wrong for black boys, and so many more go wrong for gay black boys. You walked away from me that afternoon and I was terrified for you, but also of you. My whole life, I’d been told that boys who loved other boys would go to Hell._

_Would my baby boy burn, I wondered? Should he?_

_You were the most beautiful thing to me, back then. Still, sometimes. And in that moment I hated God for wanting to hurt you, and everyone who put the thought in my head that God would want to do such a thing._

_But I remember that afternoon too often. My body tingles and my stomach tightens and I see you in the fire. And I cry. And I pray._

_Oh, my dear baby. What did I bring into the world?_

_You never said anything else about any boys. Am I wrong for praying you’d never see another boy as pretty again?_

“Babe?”

Thomas jerked up, feeling for the first time Alex’s hand on his shoulder. Alex was wearing the clothes he usually wore to his internship — the tucked in shirt and one of his ever-growing collection of colorful ties.

“Yeah,” he closed the journal and tossed it aside. “Sorry I hadn’t heard you.”

“You’re crying…” Alex said, voice soft. He ran a thumb across Thomas’s cheek, and he felt the hot heat of a tear spread across his skin. “Are you okay?”

Thomas pulled Alex in for a hug, which Alex returned after a moment of stunned stillness. “Was it… was it something you read?”

“She… she thought I might be gay,” he said, voice unsteady. “And she didn’t want me to be gay… she had weird feelings about it.”

Alex’s arms tightened around him. “Shit.” He pulled back, his eyes searching Thomas’s. “I’m so sorry.”

Thomas swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “I just… I never thought she knew. When I was younger, sometimes I was glad she’d never find out. I—” he cleared his throat. “Or I’d imagine her finding out and loving me anyway. I just wasn’t ready for that…”

“Do you think maybe you should put the journal away for a while?”

Alex’s voice was cautious. Thomas knew he’d been acting different since he’d started reading the journal. He knew Alex didn’t care for the changes. He also knew that he couldn’t stop reading the journal now that he’d started.

“I’m done with it for the day,” he said, taking a deep breath.

Alex’s gaze followed the journal as Thomas put it back in the drawer he’d taken to keeping it in. When their eyes met again, his were cheerful and blank. “I’ve got a late day tonight, but I should be home by nine.”

“Okay,” Thomas said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Good luck trying to wrestle another argument out of Burr.”

And when Alex gave him a quick, over-the-shoulder glance as he left the apartment, Thomas wanted to open his mouth and reassure him. Tell him he knew that sometimes it was difficult to be both supportive and honest.

But he didn’t.

-/-

“She said what?” James asked.

“She was afraid I’d turn out gay, because religion and south and black and yeah…” Thomas nursed the coffee in his hands. A jogger in bright yellow shorts trotted by, little clouds formed by her breath breath following her like an old fashioned steam ship. Thomas slid down the bench, his eyes cast up to the sky.

“Fuck, man. That’s messed up.”

“I know,” Thomas said, leaning back in the park bench. “I know… it's like, _w__hat did I bring into the world_?”

“Huh?”

"She wrote that,” Thomas told the murky clouds above the park. “In the journal she sent to the thing she brought into the world. Like I was Frankenstein’s monster. Like she’d gathered up everything that could possibly be wrong with a child and flipped the fucking switch.”

James didn’t say anything.

“God forbid Jane Jefferson be cursed with black faggot. Surely God has more mercy than that.”

“Jesus, Thomas.”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Maybe you should stop reading the journal. It doesn’t seem like it’s been good for your mental health.” 

Thomas looked at his friend out of the corner of his eye. “Would you stop reading it?”

James’s lips were tugged up in an ironic smile. “No, but you still should. Be the stronger man.”

Thomas looked back up at the sky. Snow was starting to fall, pure white flakes against the gray started floating down. “I’ve been strong, James. I’ve been strong all my life. My whole life society’s told me I’m not lovable, because of my skin, because of who I want to be with. My own family could barely manage to be polite to me. And I was strong. I smiled and told myself I’d love myself just as much as they all hated me. And I’ve survived. I’ve survived every horrible thing anyone’s ever said to me. It’s just…” he paused. A woman walked by with a stroller, a toddler trailing behind in a puffy coat. “It’s different when it’s your mother.”

-/-

"I really appreciate the help, by the way," John said as he set another envelope down in the box. "It would have taken me forever to do it by myself."

"No problem," Thomas said, lining the edges of the letter up with each other and running his finger along the fold to create a crisp seam, "it's not like I had much else to do. And also, it's for a good cause."

John snorted at his last minute addition. "The soul of a philanthropist, you have."

Thomas smiled even as a small shock of guilt pulsed through him. "What are they even trying to raise money for?"

"Ending childhood poverty," John said, "by asking the wealthy to toss some money at it. You know, because raising taxes to try to fight poverty would be tantamount to joining the USSR." He peeled an address label off the sheet and smoothed the sticker down on an envelope with his thumb. "Fucking rich people."

"Honey," Thomas said, putting a letter down in the 'to address' pile, "hate to break it to you, but you are one of the fucking rich people."

"Yeah, but at least I have the decency to feel guilty about it."

Thomas nodded. "I'm sure the poor find that very comforting."

John conceded with a shrug. "I'm also giving them the extra ten grand I should have paid in taxes last year."

Thomas whistled. "That's... considerate." He made a mental note to get his checkbook from his desk later.

His phone pinged at his side.

"Alex is running late tonight," he told John, clicking the phone off and setting it aside. "More work from Washington."

John smiled ruefully. "Honestly, I'm surprised he thought he was going to be home by six. You'd think he'd know himself better by now."

"It's weird," Thomas said. "I always knew he was an obsessive worker, but this internship... it's more than usual, right? This isn't normal."

"He used to be like that when we were in school, actually," John said. "He's calmed down a bit with time."

Thomas started. "How the fuck is he still alive?"

"Sometimes I think it's the working that keeps him alive."

"That's not healthy."

"No, it isn't."

"What was he like?" Thomas asked, quietly, as though he was looking for some secret knowledge. "Before, I mean? When you first met him."

"He hasn't changed too much," John mused, applying another address. "Well... I don't know, maybe a little. He felt like he had a lot to prove back then, like he always had to earn his keep. If he felt like he wasn't at his optimum performance, he'd get very hard on himself. I mean, he's still hard on himself, but it's gotten a bit better. He was always cocky and brilliant, but there was a sort of insecurity under all of it." His eyes had lost focus. "He seems a lot happier now, than he was before."

Thomas looked down at the table.

"You've been good for him," John said. "More than I think you know. Or he knows. Thanks, for that."

Thomas felt strangely warm. His conversations with John rarely involved emotions. Or depth. Or talking.

"No problem," he said after a moment. "My pleasure."

John gave him a gentle smile. 

"Did he ever tell you much about his brother?" Thomas asked, pressing his luck further. "Jamie, I mean. Did Alex ever tell you much about him?"

John's face fell. "A little. Not much. Always kinda sounded like a dick to be honest. I never met him. What's he like?"

"He's..." Thomas bit his lips as he searched for the right words, "he _seems_ nice. Smiles a lot. Looks nothing like Alex. I get the feeling some shit went down between them and Alex doesn't want me to know about it." And the sting of that suspicion was still churning in his gut.

"I think you're right," John said, eyes on the table. The whole exchange felt forbidden. "He never told me anything explicitly but through the years I've kinda pieced together a picture of what happened."

"Yeah?" Thomas asked, sliding an envelope away and not bothering to pick another up.

John bit his lip, as if his teeth were the last defense his silent concerns had before they were unleashed. Eventually they lost. "I think there was some sort of legal thing, like Jamie did something and it came down on Alex in some way. Alex is holding some sort of grudge. But I think Alex feels like he's somehow responsible for Jamie? I don't know. There's some weird dynamic there. Don't tell him I told you, alright?"

"Of course," Thomas said, though the anxiety was still there, wearing away at him. He was Alex's boyfriend. Why did Alex feel like he needed to hide things from him?

"It might just be nothing," John added after a moment. "He might just remind Alex of his childhood."

"Right," Thomas said, picking up another envelope.

"He'll tell us when he's ready," John reasoned, resigned to the long wait.

Thomas nodded, attempting stoicism. "Right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what digging into Alex's mysterious past is to everyone.


	5. Alex Gets a Roommate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minimal warnings for this chapter. A few anxiety spirals, but what else can you expect from an Alex chapter?

“Here you go,” Burr handed him the stack, still warm from the copying machine. “That should be the last of it.”

Alex separated the packets into the proper piles. “Great, thanks. Which style of separating piles do you prefer, by the way? Staggering them?” He flipped one pile sideways and set it atop another. “Or just sticky notes?” He cocked his head towards the neat pile of neon notes at the edge of his desk.

“No preference,” Burr replied airily.

"None at all?” Alex pressed.

“No,” Burr replied, eyes on his work. “Do you have a preference?”

“I was asking what yours was.”

“Alexander,” Burr said, glancing at him, and Alex felt something move up his spine. He had a weird way of saying Alex’s name, drawing it out in late-night-jazz-radio-DJ tones. _ Al-ex_-an-_der_. Made it sound exotic. “I really, really don’t care. Do it however.”

Alex staggered the piles — because, obviously — and set them aside. “Do you have the stuff Professor Jones asked for?”

“I will in a moment,” Burr responded, and Alex could hear quick, quiet typing on his keypad. The printer behind him came to life.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit rude of him,” Alex began, bringing up the email and double-checking the list they’d been sent that morning, “requesting all this work on such short notice? He has his own interns.”

Burr shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“Yeah," Alex peeked over the top of his screen, "but what it is is incredibly inconsiderate. Especially from Jones.”

“Here,” Burr handed him the printed bibliography. “You’ve got the other notes, right?”

Alex nodded and clipped the papers together. “Yeah.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Alex checked the number and felt an unpleasant jolt move through him. “Excuse me.”

He stepped outside the office and leaned against a poster explaining some political science major’s dissertation about the election of 1800. “Hey Jamie.”

“Alex, hey.” His brother’s voice came charming and easy through the line. He wanted something.

“What’s up?”

“So… uh… my housing situation fell through today. There was some… miscommunication with my roommates.”

“Right.”

“And I was… I was wondering… can I crash on your sofa for a bit? It’ll only be a week or two. I’m sorta between gigs right now but something’s coming up and I won’t be there long.”

“I’ll need to check with my roommate,” Alex said. “Lemme call you back.”

“Okay.” The line cut out.

Alex groaned and let his head fall back against the wall. He wrote a quick explanation and sent it off to John, then started on another one to Thomas. He glanced up when some movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

The man walking towards him was sort of familiar looking, but where did he know him from?

_Oh, wait._

“British John?” Alex asked.

John Church stopped, blinking. “I’m sorry?”

“Angelica’s boyfriend, right? We met a while ago. I’m Alex Hamilton.”

“Oh,” recognition moved across his face. “I remember now. Nice to see you again. Could you help me with something, actually? I’m looking for Washington’s office. They said it was around here.” He held up a small scrap of paper.

“Yeah, right here,” Alex gestured at the office door to his left. “I’m one of his interns. Is there something you need?”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” He smiled. “I’m actually here to pick some things up. I’m working for Professor Jones. We sent you an email this morning?”

“Ah,” Alex said, maintaining his smile. The conversation with his brother was still churning in his mind, every time it came back around the dread moved through him like battery acid. “Yeah, we’ve got it all set up for you.”

He ushered British John in. 

“John Church, this is Aaron Burr. John’s working for Professor Jones.”

They shook hands and Alex handed British John the pile of papers. “When’d you start working for him?”

“About a week ago,” British John answered absently, flipping through the pages. “Thanks so much for getting this together, I know it’s short notice.”

“A bit more notice next time would be great,” Alex said, leaning against his desk.

British John’s smile didn’t waver. “Sorry, mate, I emailed you as soon as I knew. It looks like our profs are setting up a collaboration.”

Alex and Burr exchanged a look.

“Mmm,” British John made a humming sound as he scanned the packet. He glanced up at them with knowing eyes. “I take it Washington didn’t tell you?”

“I’m sure he was going to,” Alex said quickly. “Is that everything you need?”

“Looks like it. Thanks again. And I really am sorry for the short notice. I’ll see you around, yeah?”

And then he was gone.

They both stared at the door in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Burr said at length. “That’s news. You’d think he would have thought to tell us.” 

“He probably thought he already did,” Alex said, eyes still trained on the door.

“Does he think we can read his mind?”

Alex laughed once through his nose. “I think he hires people who know how he thinks and are willing to do some of the thinking for him.”

Burr's eyes were searching when they met Alex's. “I’m surprised you didn’t lay into Jones’s man. You were out for blood a few minutes ago.”

Alex sat back down at his desk. The sickening anxiety from the call made him want to lean forward a bit. The phone he’d tossed at his desk lit up with a text from John — his John. He let the screen go dark without checking it, and looked up at Burr. “I probably would have torn his throat out. But he’s dating the scariest woman in New York and I want to get through the week with my balls intact.”

Burr cocked an eyebrow. “Who’s he dating?”

“Angelica Schuyler.”

Understanding washed over Burr’s face. “Got it.” His eyes went back to his laptop. “So,” he said after a moment, voice casual. Alex wouldn't have heard the edge if he hadn't spent the last week trying to find the barest hint of an edge. “When do you think our dear Professor Washington is going to get around to telling us he’s doubled our workload?”

Alex said nothing, though he was surpassing a smile despite it all. It looked like he’d finally found a topic Burr cared about.

-/-

Thomas and John both said yes, of course. Because what else could you say? Alex sent the texts knowing they had little choice in the matter, just like Jamie called him knowing there was really only one answer Alex could give.

So that evening he was helping his brother negotiate his beat-up carry-on up the narrow stairs leading to his apartment.

"We don't have a spare room," Alex explained as he walked his brother through the door, "but the couch is pretty comfy if you sleep on it at exactly the right angle."

"Kind of like a flaccid L," John explained from his spot behind the kitchen island. He was making some sort of stir fry, judging by the smell.

Jamie smiled at his comment, and extended his hand. "You must be John, Alex's roommate?"

John took it. "Nice to meet you," he said, smile wide, teeth white, eyes studiously neutral.

"Thanks for letting me crash with you for a few days. I know it's a pain in the ass."

"Not at all," John said, using his knife to coax a stray piece of carrot into the pot. It joined the other veggies with a loud hiss. "Have you had dinner yet?"

"Uh, no actually," he said, casting a quick glance at Alex as if looking for permission to be hungry. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not really," John said, stirring in some rice. He turned to Alex, "Thomas running late?"

"Yeah, got held up at the library with... something. It was vague."

"Ah, well. There's always leftovers."

Jamie, who'd been engaged in the task of trying to figure out how to make his carry-on take up as little space in its corner of the living room as possible, finally gave up on it and asked, "where's the bathroom."

John and Alex both pointed in its direction at the same time, and Jamie, with a thankful nod, ducked out of the room.

"You sure this is a good idea?" John said, so quietly his voice was barely audible over the sizzle of the stir fry.

Alex let out a little coughing laugh. "Fuck, no."

-/-

Later that night, Thomas and Alex were curled up in Alex's bed together. They'd turned the lights off, but Alex didn't think either of them would find sleep soon. Thomas had come home late -- very late. He'd said something about a study group and it all sounded official, but Alex was 89% sure he just didn't want to deal with the awkwardness of Jamie's arrival.

They'd heard the front door open and shut sometime after they'd settled into the bed, and Alex figured John had also jumped ship. Probably went to see Ben or something. Thinking about John hadn't made him anxious in a few days. Maybe if he wasn't so freaked out about the Jamie business, he would have taken the time to be happy about that.

They'd been talking about their day, an easy and familiar distraction. Thomas's study group his classes, the ungodly awful thing his mother had written in that day's entry. Alex's sympathy and gentle reminder that he didn't have to read it if he didn't want to. Thomas's tense body. The, "I know. I think I need to, though. In a fucked up way." Alex's temporary retreat. Alex's internship. Thomas's quiet, "don't you think you're working too hard?" Alex's admission that he probably was, then his reaffirming that it was worth it to have Washington's name on his resume, to get that letter of recommendation. Then the new direction -- Jamie and what his presence now meant. Estimates about how long he'd be there. Theories about what wild schemes he might be up to. Logistical questions about the reality of their new roommate.

“So what about,” Thomas lowered his voice to a whisper, “sex?”

“Is this the point we’re at now?” Alex asked, his own voice sarcastic but quieter than it had been a moment ago, “censoring ourselves in the boudoir?”

“I mean, do you think he could hear us?” Thomas asked.

“Well, I’ve never heard Ben and John… but they’re also on the other side of the apartment, he’s just outside the door.”

“Welp.”

“Guess it doesn’t matter that much,” Alex said, though by that point he’d also lowered his voice to a whisper. “We lived in the same room our whole childhood, shared one at the Stevens’ for a while, too. We both mastered the art of jerking off silently.”

He heard Thomas’s muffled laughter. “If you mastered it, how do you know he did it too?”

He rested his head on Thomas's chest. “Mastering something takes 10,000 hours of practice."

Thomas's silent chuckle felt like a gentle earthquake under him. “Well, now I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“How much total time anyone has spent masturbating. Like, how many hours do you think you’ve clocked?”

Alex's lip twitched. “I bet I jerked off more than you.”

Thomas scoffed. “Did not.”

“Did too.”

"I was an only child — I could do it whenever I wanted.”

“You forget that I’m shameless.”

“I bet I logged 10,000 just trying to do it while thinking about girls. I watched so much straight porn.”

“Well, I do get off to straight porn. And gay porn. And lesbian porn. All the porn. So that’s like, three times as many hours. You can’t fight me on this — it’s math.”

“Wow. Way to perpetuate stereotypes.”

“They’re my stereotypes, I can perpetuate them however I want.”

Somewhere in the apartment, a toilet flushed.

"Guess Jamie's awake," Alex said.

"Or John."

"Nah, that sounded like a Jamie flush. John's have more authority."

"Jesus Christ, Alex."

Alex smiled, but the shitty feeling he'd been beating down all day had come back. That jolt of grossness when he remembered Jamie's presence in his life was back. "I think I should get some sleep," he said after a moment, turning around and pulling the blanket close to his body.

"Alright," Thomas said, withdrawing. "Good night."

"Good night," Alex said. He laid in the dark for some time before eventually sleep took him.

-/-

The smell of bacon was the first indication that Alex had entered a new and strange phase of his life.

Jamie was already up before him, and by all appearances had been up for a while. Thomas, John, and Alex were greeted by a full breakfast spread featuring pancakes, bacon, toast, jam, tea and coffee, sausages, and scrambled eggs.

Jamie was setting the table around the food with a chipper smile that could have sold match sticks to a man on fire. "Morning. Figured I'd thank you for letting me stay with you for a bit, so I got up a touch early to make you something to eat."

They were a chorus of muttered and shocked thank yous, falling into their seats and taking up the forks Jamie had set down on neatly folded napkins.

"This is... really amazing," Thomas said, looking over the spread. He cast a quick -- was it guilty? -- glance at Alex, who felt his face heat.

_It's fine it's fine he's just being a concerned boyfriend he knows you aren't crazy about the Jamie situation and he doesn't know everything because you haven't told him everything and why the fuck haven't you he's your boyfriend you should tell him he wouldn't judge c'mon you're above all that now he's worried to have a fucking opinion about your brother around you what the fuck what's wrong with you why are you like this..._

_Breathe breathe breathe._

Rather than meet Thomas's eyes, Alex took the cowardly route and checked his phone. He had several new emails, but one caught his eye.

The message from Ned was brief, but it still sent a jolt through Alex's body.

**Hey,**

**We're going to need to set up an appointment for the test soon to see if you're a match. Can you arrange it some time in the next week or so? I've attached a PDF with some information about the procedure. Please get back to me as soon as you can. I know you're busy and I really appreciate what you're doing for me. **

**We need to hang out soon.**

**Love,**

**Ned**

Alex clicked his phone shut and slid it into his sweatpants pocket.

"Everything alright?" John asked, running a bit of pancake across a small lake of maple syrup.

"Fine," Alex said. "Just a thing I need to schedule."

Thomas glanced at him and Alex sent him a text under the table. **Ned.**

Thomas checked his phone under the table, then shot Alex concerned look.

This was what his life had come to, passing notes under his own goddamned kitchen table.

If Jamie sensed something was up, he didn't say anything.

John had to go to work, Thomas had a class, and Alex had a million things to do. Breakfast didn't last long.

Alex helped Jamie bring some of the dishes to the sink and made a promise about taking care of them once he got home for the night, but Jamie waved him off.

"Don't worry about it. I've got to earn my keep somehow, don't I?"

Alex let his comment fall into the silence, and went off to get his laptop and the pile of papers necessary do to all the shit he had to do that day.

"Right," he said as he pulled on his scarf. "I'll see you later?"

Jamie's smile turned sarcastic. "Have a nice day at work, _dear_."

Alex flipped his brother off and shut the door on his laughter, beating down his own discomfort with having Jamie alone in his room. Where he lived. With his things.

_Breathe breathe breathe._

He shoved his anxiety down and walked out into the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what bacon is to mornings.


	6. Thomas Makes Lists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for smut, references to suicide, tragic backstories, and annoying relatives.

_ Dear Thomas, _

_ I miss you. I miss holding you and talking to you and telling you everything will be alright. I miss smiling and singing to you. I miss being a mother. You were my greatest gift, and I don't deserve you. _

_ I want to find you. I want to see you again and be the mother you deserve. _

_ Would you even want me back? _

Thomas didn't know. He slipped his bookmark into place and closed the journal, letting out a long breath.

Then he let his head fall forward and he groaned into the kitchen table.

"Uhh, you alright there?" Jamie asked, leaning against the doorframe. 

“Oh shit,” Thomas started.

“Sorry if I scared you.” Jamie shucked his coat and boots and stepped out into the living room. “Doing an early morning walk of shame.” He pulled his shirt off and tossed it into his bag, rifling through a different bag and producing a faded looking flannel.

He had tattoos, Thomas saw. He hadn’t noticed them before. A sparrow on either pec. Some strange tribal design, originally black but sun-bleached to a dark blue. When he padded over toward the kitchen table, Thomas saw the designs on his feet.

“Is that a pig and a rooster?” Thomas asked, gesturing at the ink with a confused jerk of his jaw.

“Yeah,” Jamie said, looking down at the feet in question as if he had to check to see if they were still there. “Old sailor’s tattoos to prevent drowning.”

“Ah,” Thomas said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

Jamie smiled that smile he had whenever an awkward silence fell between the two. He took the chair opposite Thomas’s. “Doing some early morning journaling, then? Could never get in that habit myself.”

“Oh,” Thomas pushed the journal aside, “no. I’m actually reading it.”

“Oh?” Jamie eyed the old leather book. “Is it Alex’s super secret diary?” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Did he say anything about me?”

Thomas smiled despite himself. “Actually it’s my mother’s. Well,” he amended, “was my mother’s. She left it to me when she…”

Jamie’s eyes softened with understanding. “I see. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said, “but I barely knew her. She left my father and me when I was eight.”

“Oh,” he said, his eyes trained on the book. Jamie’s eyes had taken on a different light, one Thomas had only caught flickers of in the past. A sad, tired sort of wisdom he’d seen sometimes in Alex’s darker eyes. Maybe it was a Hamilton thing. Or maybe that was just how orphans looked. He wondered if he ever looked like that, too. “Then I’m sorry for that too.”

“Thanks,” Thomas thumbed the edge of the journal.

“You seem… troubled by it,” Jamie commented. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Thomas opened his mouth to make some noncommittal statement about being fine or okay or some other lie, but he couldn’t get himself to do that. “She wrote some things in it I wish she hadn’t,” Thomas said after a while.

Jamie nodded. “You talked to Alex about any of it?”

Thomas’s eyes darted to their bedroom door, where Alex was still sleeping. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Would I sound like an asshole if I said ‘because I don’t think he’d understand?’”

Jamie laughed. “Only a little. And you’re right, I’m not sure he would.” He paused. “He was just a kid when our mother died.”

"What was she like?" Thomas asked.

"Mmmm?" Jamie’s eyes looked far away.

"Your mother... what was she like? Alex doesn't talk about her much.”

Jamie looked over at him. “Yeah? I guess that makes sense. She… she was a lot like him, actually. An absolute firecracker, strong willed, ambitious. Nothing mattered to her except what she wanted.”

Thomas frowned. “Then why does it seem like he’s scared to talk about her?”

“I think it brings up bad memories for him,” Jamie said, lowering his voice and casting a quick glance at Alex’s room, “We didn’t have a happy childhood. I think he wants to forget about it completely. That’s why he’s so upset I’m here.”

Thomas opened his mouth to object, to say that  _ of course he was welcome _ , but Jamie put up a hand and dismissed the statement before it came. “It’s okay, Thomas. I’m used to it. What about your mother?”

Thomas’s shoulders tensed. “What about my mother?”

Jamie inclined his head towards the journal. “What was she like?”

“Horrible,” Thomas said with little thought. “She hated me, at least half the time she did.” He looked down at the journal. “She should never have been a mother.”

“Jesus,” Jamie muttered. “So why are you reading her thing?”

“She left it to me when she died.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Did I just walk into some murder mystery? Is that why you aren’t charging me rent?”

“I don’t think so,” Thomas said. “But who knows? Maybe she’ll confess to murdering someone in a few pages.”

“Would that make you feel better?” Jamie asked with an amused grin.

“… maybe.”

Jamie let out a little breathy chuckle.

“It’s just…” Thomas trailed off. He’d written Jamie off emotionally before he’d ever met him, but just then… in that moment, maybe Jamie was someone who would understand. “I’m... frustrated that I can’t say anything back to her. It’s like I’m just reading one long lecture about how shit I am and I just have to sit there and take it.”

“Have you ever thought about writing back?” Jamie asked. “Isn’t that something shrinks tell people to do? Write a letter you’ll never send, blah blah blah. It might help.”

Thomas looked down at the journal. “Maybe.”

“Or you could just set the thing on fire.”

Thomas smiled. “Maybe that too.”

The door to Alex’s room opened with a whining creak. Alex’s hair jutting out in every direction, the oversized hoodie he’d stolen from Thomas was hanging over his hands. He walked over to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup before starting a new pot, muttering a quiet morning greeting.

“Morning, love,” Thomas said, pushing the journal aside.

Alex crawled onto his lap, buried his face in the crook of his neck, and let out a loud, animalistic sound.

“Work load?” Thomas asked.

Alex tossed back a big gulp of coffee, “I just got an email from one of my editors,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “ They want me to write an entirely new article. They want it on a different topic, they want me to conduct a new interview. And one of my clients left a message on my voicemail, apparently something went so very, very wrong with… something… that they need to set up an appointment with me today.”

“Shit, babe,” Thomas said, running his hand up and down Alex’s back.

“I won’t be home until late,” Alex said.

“That’s okay,” Thomas said. “I’ll take care of dinner.”

“I can help,” Jamie added. “Don’t worry about it.”

Alex pulled his phone out of the hoodie pocket. “When I say late… I mean like probably not until midnight. I’m going to have to move so much shit around… today’s going to  _ suuuuuck _ .”

Thomas hugged him. “You’ll get through it, you always do.”

“I know,” Alex said, as much to himself as anyone else, “I know.” He looked over at his brother. “So when did you get in last night? You were gone by the time I woke up.”

“Actually I got in this morning,” Jamie said. “Had an invitation to spend the night with someone I wasn’t about to turn down.”

“Ah,” Alex said, bringing the coffee mug back to his lips, dark eyes still focused on his brother’s. “Guess I can’t blame you, then.”

-/-

_ They were certain your father and I were going to break up, you know. My parents. My fucking parents. Why would someone like me stay with someone like him? _

_ But Peter was as steady as a rock, and half as interesting. He kept me sane, though, or whatever version of me can pass as sane. Guess I should be thankful for that. _

_ Always hated that phrase -- "you should be thankful." If you can feel no gratitude for something, it probably wasn't much of a boon to begin with, right? I hate the word should. _

_ I should be thankful for my excellent husband and beautiful son, but I'm not. _

_ I should be thankful for my health and money, but I'm not. _

_ I should be thankful for the chance to be a mother, but I'm not. _

_ I'm tired of everyone's expectations. I had enough of them before they yanked you out of me. _

Thomas’s phone dinged. He felt like a dog on a leash, being yanked away from that shitty head space he and his mother's ghost occupied and back into reality.

He became aware of the surrounding chatter in the cafe, when before he could have sworn he was in a quiet room. The smells of coffee and baking surrounded him. It should have been a pleasant moment, he thought.

He glanced down at the screen, frowned.

A single word text message from Brandon:

**Hey**

This was the first contact he’d received from his cousin since Brandon had hung up on him during that call he’d made after Thanksgiving.

He reread the message multiple times.

Hey.

_ Hey. _

Hey?

Hey?!?!?!?!

Thomas was going to ignore it. He had every reason to ignore it. He probably should have ignored it.

He messaged his cousin back:

**hey**

The three dot illustration showed in the corner almost immediately. Thomas stared it down.

**Can you help me?**

“Are you shitting me?”

A few nearby patriots gave him strange looks, which he batted away with an apologetic smile.

With a deep breath, he typed his own death warrant:

**What do you need?**

_ dot dot dot, dot dot dot, dot dot dot _ … those little leaping dot things were so unholy.

**So my boyfriend just popped the question…**

Thomas’s brow furrowed. 

**Okay...**

_ dot dot dot dot dotty Mcfuckingdot dot dot dot _

Thomas sat back in his chair as the dots just kept coming. Jesus, it was like messaging Alex.

He finished his coffee before the reply came.

**And I really want Aunt Shannon to officiate the seeing… but she said she had too much to do in VA to come out… also that she’d have to do a lot of stuff to be legally able to do it… but I know it’s a lie and she just doesn’t want to. Would you please convince her? My father’s still having a hard time accepting that I’m gay and he doesn’t want to come but I thought maybe if you talked to her she’d budge and her blessing would be a big deal**

Thomas had to reread the message multiple times to be certain he understood just was his cousin was saying.

“Holy shit,” he said, bursting into the kitchen, his phone extended before him. “You will not believe what this… this…”

“Entitled prick?” Dolley suggested, eyes scanning the phone she’d already grabbed from Thomas.

“Entitled prick,” Thomas repeated, nodding, “wants me to do.”

“What happened?” Laf asked, using his apron to wipe the flour from his fingers.

Dolley handed him the phone.

“Holy shit,” Laf said, eyebrows raised. “Also Alex just sent you a message about that intern he hates — Burr?”

Thomas glanced at the text (a paragraph about something Burr just said) and shot back a suggested barb. “What should I do about this, though? The Brandon situation?”

“What do you want to do?” Dolley asked.

“Drive to California and punch him in the dick.”

Laf nodded solemnly. “I’ll pack you some road snacks.”

“But seriously?” Thomas’s voice was pleading even to his own ears. “What do I do?”

“If you want him to fuck off, tell him to fuck off,” Dolley said. “He hasn’t done anything to earn any favors from you. At least from what I’ve heard.”

“But…” he sputtered for a moment, then collected himself. “I’ve kind of been wanting to take the high road here. He may be a shitty cousin, but that doesn’t mean I have to be one too.” Thomas had allowed himself a few somewhat self-congratulatory fantasies of Brandon’s tearful apology about his treatment of Thomas, all of which featured a Thomas bearing a forgiving and graceful facial expression rarely found outside of a portrait of the Madonna with Child.

“Then help him.”

“But he’s a prick.”

Dolley and Laf smiled. Thomas felt his cheeks heat.

Thomas ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, I know I’m being stupid. It’s just…”

“Maybe we aren’t the best people to talk to,” Laf said. “Maybe talk to Alex? He’s…” Laf waved his hand, allowing those around him to fill in the blank of exactly what it was Alex was.

“And maybe call your aunt, see what she has to say about all of it?” Dolley suggested, going back to some sort of mixing bowl.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re probably right.”

-/-

“Alright,” Alex said, uncapping the marker. “Well put the pros here,” he wrote PROs on one side of the white board, “and cons here,” he scrawled CONs in the opposite corner.

“Think we’ll need that much room?” Thomas asked from his perch on one of the desks.

“I usually do.”

“How often do you use empty classrooms for personal brainstorm sessions?” Thomas asked.

“Often enough,” Alex said as he drew a line down the center of the board. “The janitor—”

“Owes you a favor,” Thomas smiled. “Yeah.”

Alex tossed a grin over his shoulder, then turned back to the chart. “And he’s gone for the night, so we’ve got the place to ourselves. I even have a key. So, first pro?”

“Moral superiority,” Thomas said, crossing his arms.

“Okay,” Alex jotted that down. “Con?”

“Bruised pride.”

“Mmmm, also big.”

Thomas stood and picked up a marker. “Also, fucker doesn’t deserve it.” He wrote such under the con column.

“That he does not,” Alex agreed.

“But gay solidarity.”

Alex nodded and wrote that under pro.

“Though he never did anything for me.”

“Does everything have to be quid pro quo?” Alex asked, turning to him.

Thomas cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you believed that everything in life was transactional?”

“Yeah,” Alex admitted, “but you don’t.”

“It’s just… annoying.”

“Is that all it is?”

“No…”

Alex stepped back from the board, eyes darting over the two short lists. He ran the hard plastic corner of the marker along the underside of his lip. “So what’s really bugging you here?”

Thomas looked for the right words, but just ended up using the ones that had been bumping around in his head like scattered bits of broken glass. “It isn’t fair.”

Alex gestured for him to continue. “How so?”

Thomas capped the marker and put it down, pacing as the words fell from him: “Why do I always have to be the ally? No one’s been there for me. None of the family has stood up for me.”

“Brandon, Emma, and Shannon are the only ones who know you’re gay, right?”

“Yeah…” Thomas admitted. “It’s just… he’s using me.”

“He is,” Alex agreed.

“And he never apologized for all the shit he did to me when we were younger.”

“Right. So why are you even entertaining the idea of helping him?”

Thomas went to the board and underlined ‘moral superiority.’

“I want to feel like I was always in the right. Like I’m the innocent victim in the situation, no matter the situation. Moral high road, all that.”

Alex nodded. “So why are you so fixated on whether he deserves it? If forgiveness is only about the person granting it, then why do you care about what he’s done?”

“Because he’s a fucking prick!”

Alex walked over to the board and wrote.  _ Brandon is a fucking prick _ .

“A veiny one. A big, fat, veiny one.”

“Throbbing,” Alex said as he started sketching out a rather grotesque looking penis on the whiteboard.

“Here,” Thomas said, handing Alex another marker. “Use the red one.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, uncapping it and running the red lines by the blue ones he’d already been using.

“Oooh, that looks infected.”

Alex picked up a green marker and started adding droplets of some mystery liquid on, around, and spewing out of the tip.

When he was satisfied with his work, he wrote BRANDON under the illustration in black, underlining it.

“Beautiful,” Thomas said. “By far your best work.”

Alex gave a dramatic little bow. “Thank you.” He set the markers back into place, and hopped up on the teacher’s desk beside Thomas. “You do know that you helping — or going, or whatever — it isn’t going to make him a better person. If he hasn’t apologized yet, or changed, he probably never will. You forgiving him, getting Shannon to help him, that’s all just going to be about you. He ultimately has nothing to do with this.”

“So you think I should help?”

“I think it’ll suck, and you’ll hate it. I think you’ll have to restrain yourself from decking him at the reception if you go — wait, did he even invite you?”

Thomas’s mind ran over the text again, and he let out a choked scoff of a laugh. “I … don’t think so. At least not in the text.”

“Seriously?”

“I mean, he hasn’t explicitly invited me… I sorta figured I’d be invited since he’s asking for my help, but… I honestly have no clue.”

“Wow,” Alex laughed. “Imagine if he actually doesn’t invite you? That would just be icing on the cake.”

“The shitty, shitty cake.”

“Fifty bucks says he and his fiancé get this super expensive, pretty cake covered in fondant and no one wants to eat it.”

“If I do get an invite, do you want to be my plus one?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. He went to the white board and erased their lists and his artwork. “If you bring me as your date, your relatives might not buy the ‘money-smart friend from New York’ schtick anymore.”

“I know,” Thomas said, even though his stomach tied itself in knots as he said it.

Alex returned to the desk and leaned against him. “If you want me to come with you, I’d be happy to come with you. Just promise me you’ll wear a prettier dress than Emma.”

Thomas laughed. “Bitch, I will sparkle. I will outshine everyone. They’ll have to redirect air traffic around my magnificent ass. If I’m going to come out at my asshole cousin’s gay wedding, I’m going out gay him.”

“Well have to do some recon on his husband-to-be, figure out what level of gayness we’re competing against. I for one will break out my Pride wear. Get that Bi-flag flower crown out from storage. I think John might have a rainbow jockstrap you can borrow.”

Thomas snorted.

“I’m proud of you, though,” Alex said. “Like, really proud. Even considering it… it’s big. I’ve never been in your situation. I don’t really know what it’s like.”

“That reminds me — I’ve been curious — when did you come out to Jamie? He never seemed surprised by you having a boyfriend… or all your friends having boyfriends.”

“Oh,” Alex made a dismissive hand gesture, “he’s known forever. Ever since he caught me and Jason Brown with our hands down each other’s pants behind the changing booth on the beach.”

“Good to know you’ve always had this level of class.”

“I was thirteen, what do you want from me? I wasn’t going to bring him to my cousin’s.”

“Cousin?”

“The one who committed suicide?” Alex prompted airily. “Remember?”

“I actually forgot about that. Jesus Alex, you can’t catch a fucking break.”

“I mean, after that it was a lot of breaks… kinda… the Stevens… then the hurricane…”

Thomas furrowed his brow. “You consider the hurricane a lucky break?”

“Not that, so much, but it’s kinda the catalyst. Everything broke down, so there was nowhere to go but up. And when you toss a natural disaster into your tragic backstory, it makes for excellent personal essay material."

“Mmm,” Thomas wrapped an arm around Alex. “It’s still… you’ve been through so much… sometimes I forget.”

“That’s what therapy’s for.” Alex said, voice artificially bright.

Thomas just tightened his arm around him. "Why did he do it?"

"Mmm?"

"Your cousin, I mean. Why did he kill himself? Did he leave a note?"

"Failed business venture, I think," Alex said. "He was broke."

"That's a pretty shitty reason."

"Mmmm," Alex hummed. "I don't think about him very much," he said. Alex leaned back so he was lying on the desk, eyes trained on the cheap, cracked ceiling tiles above them. "I don't know how often I should be thinking about him, but part of me thinks maybe more than I currently do."

"I don't think there's a precise metric, Alex."

"Maybe it would be easier if there was."

Thomas slid off the desk and sat on the floor in front of the white board. "They're called mourning periods and I think they were just a marketing gimmick to force women to buy more black clothing."

Alex’s eyes were closed, but Thomas could see him smiling.

They sat there in silence for a moment, before Alex broke it.

"You know where else we snuck around -- me and Jason, I mean?"

"Something tells me I'm about to."

Alex slid off the desk and crawled towards Thomas on all fours, settling right in front of him. “Schools.”

“Called it.”

“Want to know what we did?” Alex’s eyes were mischievous.

Heat stirred in Thomas’s gut. “Why don’t you show me?”

The kiss was languid, easy. The sort Thomas missed. The type they shared before Alex’s schedule filled up and his brother showed up and everything got so busy and loud.

They’re hands moved over each other with familiarity. Simple affectionate pets blending with more carnal movements. Thomas had his hand down Alex’s pants without even really remembering touching the zipper.

He stroked Alex to full hardness, whispering in his ear: “you want me to fuck you in a classroom?”

Alex let out a little keening sound, pressing into Thomas’s hand.

“You have to answer me, baby. I can’t read minds.”

Alex opened his eyes, pupils blown wide with lust. “I want you to fuck me in a classroom,” he confirmed.

Thomas smiled and was about to stand them both up to move to the desk when Alex put a hand on his chest. “No. Not the desk. The only desk you get to fuck me on is the one at my internship. Don’t think I forgot that promise.”

Heat seared through Thomas as he remembered. “So where do you want me to take you? On the floor? Against the wall?”

Alex flipped their positions so he was on top, taking care not to bang Thomas’s head against the cold tiles. “I’m gonna ride your cock right here, and you’re going to lay there in take it.”

Thomas smiled. “I guess I can do that.”

Alex -- boy scout that he was -- had some lube and condoms in the laptop bag he always had with him, and Thomas was left to lie on the ground (Alex’s shirt and pants making a makeshift pillow) as Alex prepped himself. He lightly stroked his hardness as Alex made a show of fucking himself on his own fingers, letting out little pornographic moans that Thomas was positive were fake.

But whatever, he was enjoying the show.

Finally, Alex positioned himself above Thomas and sank down. They both let out a moan as Thomas pressed into Alex’s tight heat. Thomas moved under him, trying to find a comfortable angle on the cold tile as Alex ground down on his cock.

“Jesus,” Thomas muttered as Alex started finding a rhythm.

“Mmm,” Alex agreed, eyes closed. His hand went to his cock, and Thomas briefly considered doing that job for him, but opted for the lazier route. Sometimes it was fun to just feel like a sex toy.

Alex fucked himself hard on Thomas’s length, making little circles on his downstrokes. Thomas scratched lightly at his thighs, enjoying the tightening that brought on.

“God, baby,” Thomas cooed. “You look so fucking good like that. Taking my cock like a champ. So goddamned good to me.”

Alex gasped, hand stopping on his length for a moment before starting again.

“Does it feel good, baby? Using me to hit all those spots deep inside of you? Do you like how I feel, filling you up?”

Alex’s hips sped up, “fuck, yeah. You feel so good.” He leaned forward, bringing their bodies closer together. 

Thomas took the hint and thrust up into Alex, smirking at the groan it earned him. He fucked him, ignoring the shitty tile beneath them and the bruises he was going to have tomorrow. It didn’t fucking matter. None of it mattered.

Alex let out a choked moan as he came, walls tightening around Thomas and wet heat spilling between them. Thomas wasn’t far behind, pressing up into Alex as he groaned out his climax.

“So have you decided what you’re going to do?” Alex asked later, after they cleaned up and got dressed and started walking home. “Don’t know if that cleared your head or anything…”

Thomas laughed. “I don’t know, though if I get to fuck you in the coat room at the wedding, I think that would make it worth it.”

“Dude,” Alex said, “our sexy bucket list is getting pretty long.”

“It’s all part of my plan to turn you into a world traveler,” Thomas said.

“I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a west coast coat room.”

“Guess it’s settled, then. High road it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what pro and con lists are to Alex.


	7. Alex Is Not Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: anxiety spirals (because Alex).

Alex was having a Bad Day.

It took him until after breakfast to realize that was what it was — and he thought for a moment that perhaps he ought to have been thankful for that.

At the height of his Anxiety (such a feeling had always bore a capital A in his mind), he’d been certain that there would never be a time when he wouldn’t feel that way. That Past Alex would have perceived forgetting it as a luxury on par with sheets bearing thread counts so high they’re advertised with their own separate tag.

In fact, Past Alex would likely have lectured Present Alex on his particularly good luck.

Past Alex was, perhaps, a bit of a prick.

Present Alex would have shot back that there was something newly painful of the jolt that comes with a Bad Day after so many Good Weeks. That the stone of dread sitting in his heart and constricting his throat felt heavier for all the time he hadn't been forced to carry it.

Burr didn’t seem to notice — he was too focused on the grading rubric Washington had given him.

Alex sank into his seat as Burr wrote a number atop some freshman’s quiz and flipped it on to a pile with a flourish.

“Morning, Alexander,” Burr said, his voice sweet as molasses and sticking to every crease and crevice in Alex’s given name.

“Aaron,” Alex smiled weakly. “How’re the kiddies doing?” He inclined his head towards the quiz Burr was starting on, already marked up with an alarming amount of red.

“I fear for America’s future,” he said as he turned to another page.

“Mmmm,” Alex hummed noncommittally, urging his body to press past the anxiety, the  _ what if what if I thought you were through this you’ll never recover what if it’s all true oh my god what’s wrong with you…  _

He pulled his laptop from his bag and opened it, wincing as the hinge protested with a cracked-bone sort of sound.

The fan coughed to life and the document Alex had been working on the night before was slowly illuminated.

Burr glanced up in brief alarm at the sounds coming from Alex’s desk, then quickly looked back at his work.

Alex’s cheeks felt hot.

Maybe it really was time to replace the old girl.

He would never in a million years say that he missed the soul-crippling poverty of his childhood. But he did miss the simplicity and purity that came with it. When you’re worried about whether you’ll have dinner that night, you’re just worried about whether you’ll have dinner that night.

But this first world bullshit — 

_ What if what if what if everyone’s still nervous around you what if Thomas leaves you what if it all goes wrong with John you’ll fuck up you’ll fuck up you always fuck up… _

He rubbed his temples.

“Did you get a chance to finish the thing last night?”

“Huh? Oh,” Alex ran his fingers through his hair, like his thoughts were bits of dirt and grass he could brush away. “Yeah.” He pressed a button on his dinosaur and the printer behind Burr started squealing as it spat out the lit review.

Alex allowed himself an unforgiving little smile as Burr jumped at the sound.

“Thanks,” he said, reaching for the papers.

The door opened behind them and Washington came sweeping into the room. "Morning, gentlemen.”

_ Oh for fuck's sake. _

"Doctor Washington," Burr said stiffly.

"Professor," Alex said, gaze quickly retreating back to his computer.  _ It's fine he probably won't notice that you're freaking out it's fine it's fine it's fine just breathe it's fine... _

It was not fine.

_ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck... _

_ Breathe breathe breathe breathe... _

"How's the research going?"

"Fairly well," Burr said, handing him the lit review Alex had just printed. "I put out interlibrary loan requests for the items on your list that the library didn't have and we should have the reports from NYU within the week."

Washington nodded, then turned to Alex. "And you, Alex? Do you have the reports together?"

"I should soon, sir," Alex said, frantically hacking at his keyboard. The fans hissed a loud protest against his demands. "I'll have it on your desk tomorrow morning, if that works?" He glanced up. Washington nodded.

"Good. I also just sent you an email with a few more resources I want you to get together for me. They're kind of hard to find but I think you should be able to use your connections to get them. I also have a few resources I was able to track down on my own, but some of them are in French. I was hoping you could put together a translation for me." His eyes were trained on Alex's sputtering laptop. Alex felt his cheeks heat.

Alex nodded.  _ Breathe _ . "Of course, sir."

"And Aaron?"

"Yes, sir?" Aaron asked with a smile.

"Keep grading the undergraduate work. I'm hoping to get their quizes back by Wednesday."

The fade of Burr's smile was probably only visible at the molecular level, but Alex was positive it was there. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent," Washington checked his watch. "I've got to go. Keep up the good work."

Alex brought up his calendar and blocked off sections to work on the new tasks Washington had given him. Maybe he'd be able to get Laf to help him with some of the translations...

"So," Burr started shortly after Washington left, standing up and going over towards the bookshelf behind Alex's desk, "are you going to need any help with that workload? Looks like you've got a lot to take care of."

"Uh," Alex closed the window before Burr could see his schedule, and the little blue line that was edging closer to his entry of THERAPY -- 4:00 pm, "no, I should be fine. Don't worry about me.

"Alright," Burr said, quietly enough that Alex figured it probably wasn't intended for his ears, "I won't."

"I gotta go anyway," Alex said, standing and putting on his coat. He shoved his papers into his old laptop bag and gingerly slid his old computer into place. "Schedule's sorta fucked today and there's a few errands I need to run. See you."

"Bye," Burr said quietly as Alex made his retreat. "Good luck."

-/-

"Alright," Dolley said, "after a while, this has got to constitute exploitation. He honestly can't expect you to do this on top of your already suicidal workload?"

"He can and he does," Alex muttered as he sent an email off and immediately went on to the next one. "And I would very much like to be on his good side, so..."

"So," Dolley said, tossing the list Alex had scrawled for his late-night work session onto the table of the bakery's kitchen.

When Alex had begged out of drinks with some of his friends, Dolley and Laf had let him know that they were staying late to get some work done on a large wedding order they had to put out soon. They'd offered the cafe up as a work space, and Alex took them up on it. Laf had been talked into helping Alex with some of the translations, and glanced up from behind his laptop. "And you are being paid...?"

"Jack shit," Alex said as he tossed back the last of his coffee. He ducked out into the cafe area to pour himself a new cup from the coffee maker he'd revived for his personal use.

The moment alone in the dark was unwelcome, though he’d managed to push past some of the worse shit that morning. And some time with his shrink had taken the edge off of it… for the moment.

"I believe this is slavery," Laf said when he returned. He closed one packet and opened another. 

"I'm being paid in experience," Alex said.

Dolley returned to the sugar flowers she was crafting. "That's just straight up bullshit."

"It is indeed," Alex confirmed as he crossed a task off his list. "But whatever. I can handle it."

"Doesn't mean you should," Dolley said as she set a flower down along a tidy line of identical decorations on the pan.

"Mmmm," Alex hummed noncommittally.

"Don't you think it's sort of fucked up that we live in a society where instead of fighting against abuse from schools and workplaces, we're instead raised to be proud of how much abuse we can take?"

"I take it you do not want to be making sugar flowers at nine o'clock at night?" Laf asked with a wry smile. 

"I fully intend to unionize," Dolley said to him, then turned back to Alex. "But seriously -- this school thing is crazy. I'm getting OT for being here, Laf is self employed so this place owns his soul--"

Laf let out a tiny, choking laugh, which faded into a sort of mournful sigh.

"But Alex is just doing this for a line on his resume. It's stupid."

"I don't disagree with you, Dolls, but I made a promise and I need to follow through," Alex said, sending another email off into the cloud. "And it needs to be on the record that I follow through."

Dolley set another flower down and shook her wrist out. "And why aren't you enlisting your boy toy in this little act of indentured servitude?"

"He's been busy with his own stuff," Alex said, "and... not to sound rude but..."

"His French is a little..." Laf made a gentle, kind, and illustrative hand gesture with an apologetic smile.

"So... I didn't necessarily offer. I just told him I was getting some shit done late."

"So you left him home alone to babysit your brother."

"My brother doesn't need to be babysat," Alex said with a prim edge to his tone. "And he's barely around anyway."

"So you haven't imposed a curfew yet either?"

"Not yet, no."

"And you still don't know what he's doing to make money."

"No, though I'm guessing not an internship with Dr. Washington."

"And that doesn't... make you concerned?"

"My shrink is having me re-examine my thought processes," he said, "I've decided not to worry about it until--"

"It inevitably blows up in your face," Dolley said, cutting a few petal outlines.

"You should really consider going to work as a therapist. You just have such a calming bedside manner."

Dolley bit her lip. "Sorry."

Alex sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It'll be fine. I'm sure it'll all be fine."

"It really probably will," Dolley reassured.

-/-

Thomas was reading the journal the following morning, because of course he was.

"Morning," Alex said, stretching out.

"Mmmm?" Thomas looked over his shoulder, eyes still clouded over with whatever it was his mother's words did to him. "Did you say something?"

"Never mind," Alex said, getting up.

Alex went to brush his teeth, scrolling through his morning assault of emails.

“Morning,” Jamie said over his shoulder as Alex passed him.

Alex offered him a weak little smile, tense back feeling even tenser.

Thomas’s attention was still trained on the journal when Alex returned to the room.

Alex started getting dressed, and was pushing the last button on his shirt through its hole by the time that Thomas re-emerged.

He could always hear it, the change in Thomas’s breathing, like a swimmer coming up for air.

“Jesus,” Thomas muttered.

“Bad one?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “Just more of the same shit.”

His words caught a tick in Alex’s mind, and his inner philosopher came out. "I mean,” he said as he worked deodorant under his arms, “mental shit is usually like that, in my experience. There isn't really all that much new material, just a shitty theater playing the same horror movies again and again. That's what journals are for, a bit. Someone who'll listen to you rant about your same old bullshit forever without ever snapping or looking bored. Notebooks can't leave you."

Thomas rubbed his eyes. "Why did she send it to me, then? Every entry, she's talking about how I'll never read it. Why did she send it to me? Every time I pick the stupid thing up, I think I'll get an answer, and I never do."

"Then why not just finish it?” Alex leaned over Thomas to get to the desk and checked the contents of a few files. Was it the red one or the blue one he needed? "Or just skip everything else and read the last entry? You know how her story ends, it's not like its a spoiler or something. And you hate reading it."

Thomas didn't reply.

Alex looked up from his bag. "You  _ do  _ hate reading it, right?"

"I mean... yeah," Thomas said lamely. "I hate how I feel while I'm reading it.”

"But you don't hate the reading itself," Alex said, and the realization made his stomach tighten, just a bit. "Why? Because it's still your mother?”

Thomas’s thumb played with the beaten corner of the journal. "What would you do if you found a journal your mother had written to you... or even your father?"

Alex considered it for a moment. "Dad's not the introspective type, and my mother... I don't know. I know I'd read it."

"All at once?"

"Probably. I don’t like dragging shit like that out.”

“And you think I’m dragging it out.”

“It doesn’t take that long to read a book,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes. “And it’s making you unhappy. Is it wrong for me to want you to move past it?”

“No…” Thomas trailed off. “But I’d appreciate it if you were more supportive.”

“If you had a cigarette every morning instead, should I be supportive of that?”

“That’s not the same.”

“That’s not that different,” Alex said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He shook his head, trying to push past the annoyance. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t tell you what you want to hear, alright? I have to go to work. I’ll see you tonight.”

He pressed a kiss to Thomas’s temple and strode out of the room. Thomas didn’t say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what free labor is to universities.


	8. Thomas Has His Doubts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't really think of any warnings for this chapter. Eavesdropping?

“So… let me get this right,” Aunt Shannon’s familiar drawl came through the receiver a little muddled, but still made the air feel warmer around Thomas. “You think I should officiate the wedding of a cousin you’ve never liked, so he can appease his homophobic father.”

“Yes.”

“Who are you and what did you do with my nephew?”

“I’m still your nephew,” Thomas said, leaning back on the bench. He felt the plaque about the dead person the bench was bought for pressing against his shoulder blades. “New York has just made me a better person.”

“New York has never made anyone a better person. Why do you want me to do this?”

“I just… don’t you think it would be nice to know that we did all the good and right things, and they--”

“The rest of the family?”

“ _ They _ ,” Thomas continued, “have to answer for their own sins?”

“You’ve started going to church again?” Aunt Shannon’s voice was wry.

“If I said yes, would you do it?”

She laughed. “So you just want to do this for some sort of moral superiority?”

“Pretty much.”

“And you want to drag me into this even though it’s on the other side of the country and his fiance sounds insufferable and the invitations are gaudy--”

“Wait,” Thomas interjected, “they’ve already sent out invitations?”

“Yeah,” Aunt Shannon sounded surprised, “a while ago. You haven’t gotten yours yet?”

“I’m sure it’s just lost in the mail,” Thomas said, plastering on a smile as if to convince the empty room of his surety.

“I’m sure. You really want to go?”

“I don’t want to,” Thomas said, “but I feel like I need to.”

“Why?”

Thomas shrugged. “Closure?”

“Alright, sweetie,” Aunt Shannon said after a brief pause. “If you want me to do it, I’ll do it. And at the reception we’ll get drunk in the corner and make fun of all his horrible California friends, alright?”

“It’s a date.”

“Speaking of dates, how’re things with Alex?”

“They’re good,” Thomas said. “They’re good.”

There was a pause. “You sound a little too perky.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “They’re fine, really. He’s just stressed a lot and things are a bit tense because of the journal…”

“Your mother’s journal?” Aunt Shannon, Thomas decided, was horrible at hiding interest in her voice.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, “Mom’s journal. I’ve been reading it and… it hasn’t been great.”

“No?”

“Just a lot of… maybe I’ll show it to you when we see each other next. It’s just a lot of bad stuff, and I don’t think it’s made me much fun to be around.”

“Is he not supportive of you reading it or does he not like it when you’re stressed, or…?”

“I… it’s just kind of complicated right now, but we’ll be okay.” He pulled his phone away from his ear and checked the time. “I have to go meet with a study group now, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

  
  


-/-

After the previous semester, he and Alex had come to the decision that they weren’t fantastic for each other’s academic careers. They’d arranged their schedules to ensure that they didn’t share any more classes.

Though he knew it was for the best, he still missed Alex -- their arguments, sharpening their intellectual claws on each other. Classes were boring without him.

He made it through the study group meeting without a single fight. It was weird.

After the group disbanded, Thomas hung around. He’d put together a list of books he was going to need for some of the classes and started wandering the stacks, looking for them.

“That’s Hamilton’s department,” he heard a smooth voice say from behind one of the shelves. “I don’t have any say.” 

Thomas froze.

“That’s insane. Why is Washington heaping all that work on him? You’re both interns,” came a second voice, this one female.

“He doesn’t like me,” the first voice -- was it Burr? -- replied. “And Hamilton is like his pet or something -- it’s pathetic, really. He can’t seem to realize that Hamilton’s using his name for his own personal goals.”

“Oh,” the girl’s voice took on a teasing tone, “and you aren’t?”

Burr scoffed. “He wouldn’t let me if I tried.”

“So why does he have such a boner for Hamilton?”

“Don’t know. Maybe he’s letting him fuck him or something.”

Thomas decided he’d had enough. He rounded the corner. “E… E, E, E…” he stepped out.

“Oh shit,” he blinked back in fake surprise. “I didn’t see you there. Wait,” he frowned, blinking dumbly. “Do I know you?”

He did, actually. He’d seen the guy around campus, though he’d never put a name to the face.

Burr nodded, quickly recovering from Thomas’s sudden intrusion. “Yeah,” he said, “I think we might’ve had Jones’ class together last semester. I’m Aaron.”

“Thomas” Thomas said with a smile. “Wait, Aaron Burr?”

Burr’s eyes turned wary. “That’s me.”

“So you’re doing that internship for Washington?”

“I am,” he said, drawing the words out, confusion written on his face. “How’d you know?”

“I’m dating Alex Hamilton,” Thomas explained. “He’s mentioned you a few times. And, I’m sorry,” he turned to the girl, who really was more of a woman -- probably somewhere in her thirties. “I didn’t catch your name?”

“Theodosia,” she said with a tight smile.

“She’s a student in Dr. Washington’s class,” Burr explained, “I’m helping her with some of the material.”

“How’re you liking the class?” Thomas asked. “I had him last semester.”

“Oh,” Theodosia said, glancing at Burr, “I like it a lot. He’s a really good teacher.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” Thomas laughed. “Could never really get into his teaching style. Never liked him as much as Alex did, but,” he shrugged. “Whatever. Well,” he said, maintaining the teeth-rotting tone he’d been using, “I was just over here to grab,” he quickly found the call number he’d been searching for, “this book. I’ll leave you to your studying.”

And then he walked away, wondering what to tell Alex about what he’d heard.

Just before they were completely out of earshot, he heard Theodosia say, “do you think he heard us?”

“Probably,” said Burr. “Motherfucker.”

-/-

The unfortunate truth was Thomas still barely knew how to cook.

He was good at pretending that he knew how to cook, he was proud of himself when he managed to scrap something like a dinner together in the evening, though that dinner usually involved something like pasta and a premade jar of noodles. Forays into the mesmerizing world of sautéing and roasting happened on the occasional brave evening (usually resulting into something inedible), and his camera roll was filled with screenshots of recipes he was certain he'd one day master.

And James was trying to get better at cooking to impress Dolley, so Thomas found himself in the kitchen more often than he liked.

Though whiskey helped.

"Does that look like two cups of carrots?" he asked, gesturing towards the uneven pile of orange lumps on the cutting board.

"If we're saying that's two cups of carrots, we no longer get to say that's two cups of onions," James gestured at the sad heap of whitish chunks in a bowl by the stove.

"We're going with the onion metric, then, fuck cutting a new one," Thomas said as he put some of the chopped carrot into the fridge to be used later for… something.

James held the olive oil bottle well above the pan and moved it upright with an ostensibly elegant flourish. "Two... ish tablespoons of olive oil... and the same amount of butter," he cut along one of the lines on the butterstick's wrapper. The chunk of butter fell into the oily puddle with a metallic thump. "And now we add the onions, right?" he glanced over at Thomas's laptop screen. "Right."

"Right," Thomas said, taking a swig of whiskey.

"Right."

The onions started sizzling in the pan.

"And now we caramelize them." He held his spatula up like a fencer saluting his opponent.

Thomas nodded and started on the celery. 

"Too bad Alex isn't here to see us through all this," James said. "I was hoping he'd take pity on me and teach me how to not suck at all this."

"Not gonna lie, nine times out of ten he just yells at me for my shitty knife work... which has yet to improve my knife work." He gestured at the skillessly hacked celery bits in sad illustration.

"Still," James said, batting the onion bits from one side of the pan to the other. "So how're things between you anyway? You haven't been talking about him much."

"It's been fine," Thomas said, "he's just been busy a lot."

"Isn't being busy sort of his thing?"

"He's been particularly busy," Thomas said. "His internship is kicking his ass and he won't drop any of the other shit he agreed to. He's stretching himself too thin."

"Have you made your thoughts on the matter known?"

"Have I ever not made my thoughts on the matter known?"

"Fair enough. Fair enough."

"But yeah, I don't know. It's good when we actually get a chance to see each other. But then there's the whole thing with his brother--"

"Right, the bone marrow thingy."

"And the other brother."

"Who's almost certainly a drug dealer."

"I mean..."

"Dolley has opinions on that as well."

"And I see she let them be known."

"I mean..."

"So what's your verdict on him?"

"I don't know. Alex says he doesn't trust him, but Alex also barely knows him. Like, it's been nearly ten years since they were actually living together. A lot can change."

James tossed a suspicious look over his shoulder, hand still stirring the onions with all the steady movement of a witch at her cauldron. "You got a crush on him or something?"

"What? No..." Though if he were being honest with himself... like 100% really, truly, brutally honest, Jamie was more his traditional 'type.' And if he and Alex weren't together, and if Jamie wasn't clearly nearly flamboyantly heterosexual and if twenty or other so things were different, well then... maybe.

"No," Thomas said again. "It isn't that. It's just that I think Alex is letting his prejudices get to him. He likes to think the worst of people in general, and particularly of his family. I just think that maybe he's taking it all a bit too far. When Jamie first moved in, he was talking about how worried he was that Jamie would be lazing around all day. When Jamie started spending more time away from the apartment, Alex started going on about what sort of shit he must be up to.”

"And you think Jamie's gotten... like, better or something?"

"I don't know if he was even ever that bad, you know? Or if it's all just Alex being paranoid and shit. I don't know... but I think the onions are done."

James looked down at the pan. "They look very... brown."

"You should add the carrots," Thomas said with confidence he wasn't particularly entitled to.

James tried to guide the carrots off the cutting board with the edge of his knife, but a handful of them scattered across the stove top and counter.

"So what do you think he's up to? Jamie, I mean?" James asked as he started gathering the stray carrots up.

"I don't know. Everyone seems convinced he’s doing something shady, but… I mean, what if he's just working some job he's embarrassed to tell Alex about? Like... imagine being Alex's brother. If I was working a shitty job, I probably wouldn't advertise it."

"True enough. Weird they came out so different, you know? Like I get smart kid, dumb kid, but..."

The door opened and they both jumped at the sound.

"I'm not a robber," John said with an amused grin. "Promise I won't shoot." He tossed his backpack on the floor, where it fell with a loud bang. "Also, whatever you're cooking? It's burning."

James looked back down at the pan. "Shit."

John opened one of the windows and Thomas became aware of how smoky it was becoming in the room. "You're lucky you didn't set off the alarm. Try turning the heat down."

James did.

"Where's Alex?" John asked, glancing around the apartment.

"Out," Thomas said. "Probably translating the phone book into Latin or writing a 50,000 word dissertation about his observations of a brick wall."

"Yeah, sounds about right Can I?" He jutted his chin towards the whiskey bottle. 

"Of course," Thomas said, handing him a glass from the cabinet.

"Thanks." He tossed back the first glass with a single gulp and poured a second. "Fuck, it was a long day. Jamie here?"

Thomas shook his head.

"Cool. I mean, not cool. But..."

"Cool," Thomas confirmed. "I get it. So what went wrong today?" he asked.

"I'm starting my internship at the firm... Lee and Lee, what a name, right? And... Jesus," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm like  _ thisclose  _ to shooting the fucker they put me under."

"Isn't he a human rights lawyer?"

"For some fucking reason. He doesn't let me do anything, talks shit about literally every other lawyer I've ever heard of, ignores half his cases... I'm not even sure half the stuff he's doing is legal."

"That's..." Thomas trailed off, exchanging a look with James.

"Yeah. I know, not much I can do about it. Yet, at least."

The door opened again, and the three men turned to it expectantly. Jamie came in, hauling a large duffel bag into the living room. He looked up at the people staring at him. "Hello. Just bringing my laundry back." He tucked the bag in by the couch. "Why does it smell like burning onions?"

"Oh for fuck's sake," James turned back to what was looking less and less like dinner.

"You might need to start over," John said, swishing the whiskey around his glass. "Do you need some help?"

"Maybe?"

"What are you making?" Jamie said, stepping over towards the kitchen and craning his neck to get a better look at the pan.

"Pasta primavera," James explained, "theoretically."

"Ah," James said, wrinkling his nose. "Yeah, you might want to start over. I'm James, by the way."

"Nice to meet you," James said, taking Jamie's hand and shaking it. "I'm James."

Jamie grinned. "Ah, I'll call you Jamie, then, to avoid confusion."

John finished his drink.

They formed a sort of assembly, with Jamie and John lending their superior culinary skills to the process. Jamie brought a tidy bowl of chopped onions over to the stove for the second attempt at caramelization while John worked on the carrots. James and Thomas just sort of watched.

"So I've been meaning to ask," Jamie said as he strained the pasta, "do you have anything planned for Alex's birthday? Like a party or...?"

Thomas shook his head. "No, he didn't want me to throw one. Said he's too busy."

Jamie rolled his eyes. "He's always too busy."

Thomas shrugged. "He's the birthday boy."

"Have you figured out what to get him?" Jamie asked. "I got him something small, but I think he'll like it."

"What did you get him?"

Jamie smiled. "It's a surprise. And like I said, small. I'm kind of really broke."

"What would you give him?" Thomas asked, glancing at Jamie from the corner of his eye, "if money wasn't an object, I mean." He hadn’t found anything for Alex during his trip to the bookstore with Dolley, and was still out of ideas. Alex’s birthday was in a few days.

He expected Jamie to laugh the question off or provide some sort of joke answer, but his face turned thoughtful. "Probably a new laptop,” he said after a moment.

Thomas raised a surprised eyebrow. The laptop had crossed his mind, but ... "isn't he really attached to the one he has? It seems sentimental."

Jamie smiled. "I think he might get over it if presented with something shiny enough. Something that can handle him."

"Maybe," Thomas said, bringing plates to the table.

"So yeah," Jamie said with a little smile, "if I had money, that's what I'd get him."

-/-

As they neared the one week point of Jamie’s stay, Thomas didn’t know what to think.

Alex rarely talked about his brother. He'd always seemed like a casualty of Alex's childhood: mentioned in passing during brief conversations about Alex's earliest years, then out of the picture by his teens. He was a presence, then he wasn't. "My brother and me," then "me." He couldn't recall a single conversation or story that mentioned Jamie as an individual.

Knowing he was a real person, seeing him, talking to him... it was a lot. More than Thomas really felt ready for. Shitty as it was (and he knew it was shitty) seeing Jamie Hamilton in person reminded Thomas that what had happened to Alex had actually happened to Alex. Seeing his sunburnt face made the stories of Alex's life before America a terrifying reality: the abuse and the loss and the sickness and the abandonment and the hurricane. It scared him.

And beyond that, no one likes it when the in-laws visit.

But Jamie was a non-presence in the house, a light-touch guest and so considerate Thomas got the feeling that he couch surfed quite a bit and knew how to ensure his welcome lasted as long as possible. The dishes were always done. He offered to make dinner most nights, and proved to be an even better cook than Alex (not that Thomas would ever say so). He kept the apartment tidy and had apparently long since mastered the art of comfortable silence. He was, in many ways, the ideal roommate.

A few days into his stay, Thomas realized that Jamie wasn't the problem with Jamie's visit. Alex's feelings about Jamie's visit were the problem with Jamie's visit.

There was always a tension in the room when the two brothers were together. Jamie would suggest a certain spice as part of what they were having for dinner, and Alex would bat the suggestion away with a sharp retort. Or, Jamie would offer to take care of the laundry, and Alex would say he had a particular way of doing it.

Alex was really just being a prick about everything.

So the night after Alex shut his brother down about laundry, Thomas said, "you know you're really just being a prick about everything, right? With Jamie, I mean."

"What are you talking about?" Alex asked, tossing a few pairs of socks in the drawer and shutting it with his foot.

"You're not being a terribly gracious host. He's bending over backwards to make you happy, but you just seem to want to be pissed at him. Why?"

Alex glanced at the door. "You know he can probably hear us talking, right?"

"Oh yeah," Thomas moaned as obscenely as he could, "take it deeper, baby. That's right."

Alex threw a sweater at his head. "Shut up."

"That's right baby, talk dirty to me."

"Fuck off."

"God, yeah. Love it when you do that tongue thing."

"I am this close to murdering you with a laundry basket," he held the hamper up menacingly. "Swear to fucking god."

"Seriously though. What's the problem?"

Alex set a folded pair of jeans down on the bed. "I just don't trust him,” he said.

"What reason has he given you not to trust him?"

"About 25 years of them."

"That's not fair."

"Why are you defending him?"

"Why are you so desperate to shit on him?"

"He's made a lot of mistakes, alright?" Alex hissed, voice lowered again. "Mistakes you just don't come back from. Don't make me talk about it, okay? Can you just trust me when I say I don't trust him? Why do I need to explain everything to you? I thought you were on my side."

"He's your brother, Alex. You don't need to have sides."

"Spoken like an only child."

"Don't give me that bullshit," Thomas said. "Despite what you seem to think, siblings can get along. It's been documented. It's in the scientific record."

"Oh my god," Alex said, walking towards the door.

But Thomas wasn’t done. "Is what he did so bad you can never forgive him? You'll let him be here, but, what? You feel like you need to pay some karmic debt by being an absolute shit the whole time? Do you know how much I would pay to have what you have?"

Alex’s hand stopped on the door knob. He turned, letting out a derisive snicker. "What? College debt and a student visa? A tragic backstory Lifetime might option for a movie? What could you possibly want from me?"

"Living family members. Like, real ones. Ones on the same chunk of the family tree. You have a father you can talk to and a brother who's barely even a room over and you are so fucking ungrateful."

Alex looked incredulous. "That's what all this bullshit is about? You're jealous? Well, believe me, if I could give them to you, I would. But I like you way to fucking much to ever drop that shit on your lap. Jamie isn't trustworthy. I'm going to say that was kick 30 out of the 753 kicks in the nuts I had over the course of my childhood. If you don't want to believe me, I don't know what to tell you."

"I believe you," Thomas said, "it's just... why can't you tell me? I don't get that. I'm your boyfriend, and I'm trying to respect your boundaries, but..." he trailed off.

"But you just want to know," Alex said, almost to himself. He kneaded one of his shoulders. "Fine," he shrugged, eyes trained on the floor. "I'll tell you if that’s what’ll make you get off me about this. But not here. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you."

Thomas felt victorious, but not as victorious as he thought he'd feel. The win was feeling a bit hollow.

They didn't talk much as he and Alex put on their coats and hats and headed out the door. They had a quick spat about which bar to go to, though neither of them seemed to have their hearts set on anything. Eventually they were sitting at a small table in the corner of a local pub, a pint of beer before each of them as some hipster musician plucked away at a Bon Iver cover in the corner.

"He fucked me over when we were younger," Alex said after a moment, looking down at his drink.

"How?"

"Back when I was in high school, I was saving up money to go to this prissy prep school in Florida. I'd already secured a scholarship, but it didn't cover all of my expenses. I was working after school at the shop by then, and had a few other small gigs on the side, so I managed to save up a few grand to put towards stuff. I had a budget all drawn up, and I figured I could probably have all the money I needed by the start of the next school year. It was my secret. The only person who knew about it was Jamie. It was something I was doing for me. I was going to work my way out of that shit hole and make something of myself. American dream blah blah blah." Alex's eyes hadn't left his cup.

"Alright," Thomas said. "So what happened?"

"Pretty much all of the money I was making was under the table,” Alex explained. “Child labor laws, you know? So it was mostly cash. And my mother had never set up a bank account or anything. So I had a stash. I kept it in an old cigar box in the attic, under a loose floorboard."

"Seriously?" Thomas asked. "People actually do that?"

"Shut up," Alex muttered with a tiny smile on his lips. Then his face turned serious again. "But then one day I went to put some more money into it, and it was empty."

Thomas nodded, understanding twisting his gut. "So you think Jamie took it?"

"He was the only one I told I kept money there. This was back when I was living with the Stevens. And he took off shortly afterwards."

Thomas frowned. "You didn’t tell Ned?"

A slight flush came to Alex's cheeks. "I didn't want him to judge me. I know it sounds stupid, but I hated talking to him about money. He never had to worry about it. He always got what he wanted, no matter what. He was bitching and moaning about the school his parents were about to send him to. I didn't want him to know that I was busting ass to go somewhere even less prestigious."

"Why did you tell Jamie?"

"He asked to borrow money all the time. I kept saying no. He got annoyed and asked me what the fuck I was doing with all that cash, since he knew how many hours I worked. Eventually I just snapped at him and told him. I didn't think he'd actually take it. He was my older brother!" The last words came out as a snarl, and a nearby couple stopped their conversation to glance over at Alex, who'd taken another long drink from his beer.

Thomas bit his lip. "What did he say when you talked to him about it?"

"I never did," Alex said.

"What?"

"He still hasn't apologized."

"What if he wasn't the one who did it?"

"Who else could it have been? No one ever went up into the attic. Have you ever been in a St. Croix attic? It isn't a pleasant place."

"So he left after?"

"Yeah, started working for a carpenter. Or something like that."

"Right."

"You don't believe me."

"I mean, innocent until proven guilty?"

"Do you want me to ask him about it, would that make you feel better?"

"It might make you feel better. Maybe you'll get your apology."

"I gave up on that apology a long time ago."

"Yeah, you really do sound like you're over it."

“I haven’t made a vow to take the moral high road, like you have. I still get to be petty and vengeful.”

“Clearly it’s making you very happy,” Thomas said.

Alex glared at him. “I just don’t trust him, okay? And I don’t like that I don’t know where he goes all the time.”

“You think he’s doing something shady,” Thomas said. “But you don’t have any proof.”

“I know there’s something he’s not telling me. And even if he didn’t take all that money all those years ago, he just… I mean, you’ve lived with him, you know what he’s like.” Alex waved a hand towards Thomas, as if he were saying something obvious.

Thomas wasn’t really sure he knew what Jamie was like, but he held his tongue.

Alex seemed to have worn himself out. “I don’t trust him,” he repeated.

“You sure you don’t want to have that conversation with him, then? Get your closure, maybe your apology?”

“I will when I’m ready,” Alex said. “Whenever I’m ready.”

“Like when I’m ready to finish my journal.”

Alex looked like he was going to protest, but thought better of it. He tipped his beer glass in acknowledgement of Thomas’s point. “It’s almost my birthday,” Alex said, running his fingers through the little ring his glass left on the table. “I get to be a hypocrite if I want. Those are the rules.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me are what talking shit is to everyone.


	9. Alex Gets Older

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Triggering of PTSD, mentions of domestic fights and alcohol abuse.

On the morning of Alex’s birthday, he woke up with a headache.

Sunlight seeped through the curtains and launched an assault on his face. Alex turned over and buried his head in Thomas’s shoulder, groaning.

“Happy Birthday,” Thomas whispered, fingers chording through his hair.

“Mmmmm.”

“How’s the birthday boy?”

“Nnnnnn.”

“Ibuprofen?”

“Mmmmm.”

He felt Thomas’s body move under him, the squeak of the nightstand drawer, the clink of manicured nails on glass.

Alex yelped as a room temperature glass was pressed against his temple.

“Time to medicate, love.”

Alex groaned but tossed a few tablets back and washed it down with the stale water.

He collapsed back into the bed.

Thomas was hovering over him, the shitty winter lighting that had assaulted Alex that morning was making Thomas glow like a Christmas angel in a shop that had yet to take down its decorations.

Handsome bastard.

He pressed a delicate kiss to Alex’s forehead. “I take it you don’t want your happy birthday morning blowjob?”

The idea did hold a certain appeal. “I mean… I wouldn’t be opposed.”

Thomas smiled and started a little trail of kisses down Alex’s torso, glancing up at Alex through his lashes.

He pushed the covers back and--

“Wake up, baby brother!” Jamie was pounding against the bedroom door. “I made pancakes.”

Alex groaned at the sound. He could feel Thomas’s sad smile against his skin.

Thomas moved up his body and whispered in his ear, “later, then.”

Alex shivered despite the pain in his head.

-/-

“Happy Birthday, Alexander!” Burr said as Alex dusted the snowflakes off his coat.

“Thanks,” Alex said, rolling his neck for the hundredth time that morning. He draped

his coat over the of his chair, and noticed a small red envelope on his desk. Inside was a generic looking Hallmark selection from Burr, and a Starbucks gift card with a three digit balance.

“Oh my god, Aaron,” Alex said, blinking at the amount. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Burr shrugged. “No problem. How’s the paper coming?”

Alex rebooted his laptop, eyes struggling to concentrate on the screen. The lines of black on the document distorted the assaulting white of the background, and he felt like he was trying to force an antique camera to focus. No matter how hard he glared at the screen, he could barely make out his own work. “It’s… coming along.”

British John burst into the room, arms spread wide. “Happy Birthday, Alex!”

Alex winced at the noise, and longed for the days before Facebook notifications when a man could trudge through is birthday in peace. “Thanks, John.”

He frowned. “You alright, mate? You look a bit pale.”

“I feel like a warrior goddess is about to spring from my brain, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“Ah, I see,” British John lowered his voice. “Want me to check and see if maintenance has a hammer? Might speed the process up a bit.”

“Or at least put me out of my misery.”

British John just smiled. “Barring that, I think I have some pain meds in my desk.”

“Thanks but I’m already up to my max dosage. The lining of my stomach is probably non-existent at this point.”

“Ah, well, sorry,” he shrugged.

“John,” Burr said, voice sweet, “do you need something?”

“Not from you, no,” British John replied in a tone that sounded the way a cough syrup tasted. “Just swung by to wish Hammy a happy birthday. Office bylaws don’t say we can’t be friends, right?”

Burr’s eyes were polite and cold and maybe thirty other things, but they weren’t  _ friendly _ . “Not at all. I was just thinking maybe Alex wanted to nurse his headache in peace.”

“Strange,” British John said, drawing up to his full size (an entirely unnecessary maneuver, since neither Alex nor Burr were burdened with much in the way of excessive height, and they were both sitting down). “I was just thinking Alex is an adult who can make his own decisions about who he wants around him.”

“Alex  _ is  _ an adult,” Alex confirmed, “and he thinks maybe arguing about his headache loudly in front of him is a pretty questionable home remedy.”

They both looked sufficiently cowed and maybe it was the placebo effect, but the brief flicker of moral superiority took just a bit of the edge off the pounding in his head.

Maybe there was something to the whole moral highroad kick Thomas was on.

British John managed to make a somewhat graceful exit shortly after, getting Alex to agree to a double date with him and Angelica some time in the near future as he left.

Alex and Burr settled into work shortly after, but eventually his curiosity got the better of him.

“What is it with you two?”

“What do you mean?” Burr asked, looking up from the essay he was grading.

“You seem to kind of… oh I don’t know,” Alex waved his hand like the proper word was a cat he could compel to jump up on his desk, “despise each other.”

Burr’s brow was smooth as a blank sheet of paper, and just as unreadable. “I don’t have any particular feelings towards him either way. If he dislikes me for some reason,” he continued, picking his pen up again, “that’s his business.”

Alex cocked an eyebrow. “No bad blood there then, none at all?”

Pearly white teeth presented themselves in two tidy lines — uniform and menacing as an advancing army. “None at all.”

“Then you won’t mind if I ask him to join us in the library Saturday when we go to compile the sources Washington’s after?”

And there it was — a brief crack in the perfect facade.

It was brief, but worth it. Alex felt his brain fog clearing. 

The recovery was swift. “That’s not a problem,” Burr said.

“Good,” Alex said, opening Washington’s inbox and sorting through the emails. He nodded to himself and allowed one final glance up at Burr. “Good.”

-/-

  
  


“So how’s life?” Ned asked. “Last we talked Jamie had just moved in with you.”

“Yup,” Alex nodded, hands clasped around the coffee cup. 

“He still living with you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Alex said. “He said a week or two, which for Jamie means— “

“Six or seven months,” Ned’s lip quirked. “I’m still amazed how the two of you ended up so different.”

“I mean, we never had all that much in common in the first place.”

“But still — I mean, you had the same childhood until you…”

“Didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Ned agreed with a shrug.

“Have you seen him since he came to New York?"

“No,” Ned shook his head. “When you talked about him… I mean, I kinda got the feeing maybe you didn’t want me to talk to him.”

White heat flushed across Alex. “I never — I mean… I don’t have any say in who you spend time with, Ned. The two of you — like, you don’t need my blessing or anything. I mean of course you can talk to him you don’t need me to tell you you know… you do know you don’t need my blessing, right?”

Ned frowned. “Of course I know Alex, but he’s your brother… well… you know.”

“Yeah…”

“Does he even know I’m in New York?”

“I don’t know,” Alex admitted, crossing his arms. “I never personally told him. When was the last time you actually had a conversation with him?”

“Oh,” Ned blew his lips out, “years. I mean, after he moved out, we didn’t exactly move in the same circles, you know?”

Alex nodded. He knew.

He played with the corner of the eminently respectable history book Ned had given him for his birthday. “So… how’s the residency going?”

“Really well,” Ned said with a small smile. “I mean, miserable, and the long hours… but you know about long hours.”

“Mine are voluntary,” Alex offered with a shrug.

“Well, no one pointed a gun at my head and told me I had to become a doctor.”

“Your father might as well have.”

“Ah, well,” Ned made a gesture dismissing the idea, the look in his eyes a little too resigned for Alex’s comfort. “Parents, you know?” His eyes widened. “Well… I mean… I know they were… out of the picture at an early age for you. But did they ever like push you? I mean, more than Jamie… since you were…” he waved his hand to indicate to all the words he was too polite to say.

Smarter.

More promising.

More useful.

The favorite.

Sure, being the favorite child of Rachel and James Hamilton was a bit like being the prettiest apple on a compost heap, but there he was. He’d always known, Ned had always known. Jamie had certainly always known.

“Not really,” Alex said, then he back tracked. “I mean, maybe a bit? I think my mother wanted me to be a doctor.”

“Really?” Ned leaned forward.

“Yeah,” Alex said, shoulders tensing as he tried to remember the few things his mother had said about his future. Running his mind over memories of his mother was about as comfortable as searching a carpet for fallen needles with his bare hands in the dark. “I wanted to be a doctor, too. For a long time. I was considering the premed track when I started college, actually.”

“Why?”

_ Because I wanted to do what you did, but better. _

“Maybe because of her? She wanted a kid who’d amount to something. I was the best shot. I wanted her to be proud of me.”

“I’m sure she is, wherever she is,” Ned’s voice had taken on that soft quality people put on when talking about his dead mother. Like he was still a twelve year old reeling from the shock of waking up next to her motionless body.

“Maybe,” Alex said. “I’d always wonder what she’d make of my gay ass, living in a city with fingers in more pies than I have fingers.”

“Okay,” Ned smiled, grasping desperately for a joke. “That turn of phrase implies you have, like, severed fingers in pies.”

Alex welcomed the levity back into the conversation with a grin. “New business venture: plant fingers in pies and make millions in lawsuits against every bakery in New York.”

“Ew.”

“And I’ve got a doctor friend to hook me up.”

“Oh, you’ve befriended a doctor, somewhere? How nice for you.”

“That’s cold, Stevens.”

“Have some consideration for your poor friend’s nerves.”

“You’re starting a career in medicine! You’re gonna spend the day getting blood and guts and shit all over yourself.”

“I draw the line at cannibalism.”

“At cannibalism? Not before it?”

“I will not define  _ is _ , Mr. Clinton.”

“Oh, c’mon. It’s not like I’m gonna eat the fingers.”

“I don’t know,” Ned crossed his arms. “If you can make the case you actually ate half the finger, you can probably get more money for psychological damages.”

“Good point,” Alex said. “You’re officially one of the masterminds.”

“Goodie.”

Alex smiled. An email popped up on his phone and sudden awareness of the time made him stand. “Shit. I gotta go.”

“What is it?”

“Jamie asked me to be home by six tonight. Apparently he has a surprise for me.”

  
  


-/-

The smell as he walked up the steps towards the apartment was like a punch in the gut.

Images of cramped kitchens, crowded tables, empty cabinets. He swore he could hear a cheap AC churn fruitlessly against the oppression of the heat and humidity, the muffled arguments of his parents. He fumbled with the lock, and some small, sad part of him half expected to see his mother by the stove, dark hair, worried brow, sharp eyes.

But instead it was Jamie.

“Alex!” he said, turning. He spread his arms wide, spoon still clenched in one sea-worn hand. Flecks of the food he was making were flung towards the cabinets and backwash. “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks, Jamie,” Alex said, accepting the hug and returning it with a few gentle pats on his brother’s back. “So… you’re making Mom’s special… whatever it was.”

“Yup,” Jamie sunk the spoon back into the stew. “Took most of the day to hunt down the ingredients. Smells like home, doesn’t it?”

It smelled like something.  _ Home  _ was hardly the word Alex would have used. “She never taught me how to make it.”

But Jamie had reproduced it perfectly. The smell of the stuff had always reminded Alex of arguments. His father had hated that stew — their mother only made it when a fight had gotten bad enough their dad left the house.

They’d had it the night he left for good, too.

“Ah, well,” Jamie said, seemingly lost in his own thoughts as well. “I was older.”

“You still are,” Alex said. “How’s it feel to have a baby brother who’s 23?”

“Not too different from one who’s 22, to tell the truth. It’s not like you got taller.” He ruffled Alex’s hair. Alex batted his hand away.

Jamie laughed and went back to stirring the pot.

“And what’s — oh my god,” Alex plucked a bottle from the counter, brushing aside the red ribbon to read a label he hadn’t seen in years. “Didn’t know you could get this shit so far north.”

Jamie shrugged. “We’re in New York. You can get anything here. I saw it and had to grab a bottle.”

“I’ve never actually had it before,” Alex admitted.

Jamie’s hand stopped on the spoon. He turned to Alex, incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding. Never? How is that even possible?”

“I went to America when I was seventeen!’

“So?”

“How old were you the first time you had it?”

“Dunno — probably eleven, twelve?”

“Seriously?”

“I wasn’t a nerd like my baby brother."

Alex rolled his eyes and broke the seal on the bottle. “So that’s where you’re brain cells went.”

“Ouch,” Jamie said, hand gripping his chest. “Below the belt.” He was joking but something in his tone suggested maybe he also wasn’t. 

“Sorry,” he said lamely as he poured two glasses of the rum.

He hands one to Jamie, who took it with a wry smile. “No mixer. You really are my brother.”

Alex choked back something that was a half-laugh, half sob. He sniffed it, wondering what he was getting himself into.

If the scent of his mother’s stew was a punch to the gut, the smell of the rum was a kick to the balls.

He recoiled and memories washed over him life floodwater overtaking a levee. His father prone on the floor, Alex and Jamie trying in vain to move their father’s dead weight, flinching away from the sting on his breath. His mother throwing the bottle at his father’s head, glass shattering on the wall, falling into a chair Alex wouldn’t be allowed to sit in anymore. The threatening roll of an empty bottle against a tile floor, full of as many dark promises as an advancing thunder cloud.

“You alright, there?” Jamie asked, fair brows raised.

“Fine,” Alex said, and he tossed his drink back like a shot.

The burn seared his throat on the way down, heat spreading through his chest. He ran his tongue over his lips to try to get rid of some of the sting.

“Alex?”

_ And now Jamie’s worried. _

He set the glass down, grabbing the bottle and was about to repour when Jamie put his hand over the cup. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

Alex sighed. He was tired, so fucking tired. “Do scents sometimes bring up… memories? Like… not good ones?” he asked.

Understanding spread across the sun-baked lines of his brother’s face. “Oh. The rum or the stew or… both?”

“I mean… both, honestly,” Alex said, wrapping his arms around himself.

Jamie said nothing. He closed the bottle and put it in the small cabinet reserved for liquor.

Jamie turned the heat off under the stew and brought the pot to the bathroom. He flushed the stew down the toilet and put the pot into the kitchen sink, opening a window Alex hadn’t seen opened since he moved in. January air blew in — cold and cruel and clean.

Alex’s throat constricted. “Jamie—”

“I’m gonna order Chinese,” Jamie said, pulling out his phone. “Them I’m gonna go out and buy us a twelve pack of some shitty beer and we’re gonna get Ameri-drunk.”

Alex opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. Nodded. “Thanks.”

-/-

  
  


It had taken a while for the Hamilton brothers to put together the Chinese order. They’d broken into a bottle of bourbon (Jamie ended up deciding against the beer) while debating what precisely they wanted and shopping around for local delivery joints. The list they’d jotted down on the back of an old receipt had gotten quite lengthy, and the subsequent discussion about how they’d split up the bill ended with a tipsy Alex declaring he’d foot the whole thing.

Thomas and John got home shortly after the food arrived, and Alex was already feeling very warm by the time Thomas sat behind him and kissed his temple.

“How’s the headache?” he asked as he scooped General Tso’s chicken onto his plate.

“‘S fine,” Alex said, limbs heavy. “How was your day?” He leaned against Thomas and smiled as he wrapped his arm around him.

“Good,” Thomas said. “Didn’t do much. Just went to class.”

“That’s nice,” Alex said, nuzzling into his side.

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Thomas asked, voice amused.

“Maaaaaaaybe,” Alex said.

He could feel Thomas’s chuckle, his fingers moving through his hair. Alex sighed into the gentle pet.

He barely paid attention to the conversations swirling around him, preferring to relax into the simplicity of warmth and the slowness of his thoughts. It felt good to just not think for a while.

But the unfortunate reality of birthdays is that you end up being the center of attention at some point, no matter what you do.

Someone said something about cake and then the lights were darker and fire was coming at his face.

Alex had stopped believing in wishes years ago, but as he blew out the candles, his mind searched for something to ask for.

_ Apologies _ , came to mind. And the candles were out before he could think of something better.

The cake itself was stunning, complex swirls of frosting lined with sugar flowers around the base. It looked like Dolley’s work. 

Then came the presents.

John gave him two play tickets, packed neatly in a dark blue envelope.

“Holy shit,” Alex said, looking them over, “these are really good seats. Thank you.”

John just gave him a smile and a shrug. 

_ Fucking rich kids, _ Alex thought, affectionately enough.

“I’ll give you mine later,” Thomas said with an exaggerated wink that made Alex’s face heat up. “When we’re alone.”

“You get him a dildo or something?” John asked laughingly.

“I think the present is just 100% organic Virginia grown cock,” Jamie quipped and laughter rolled through the table like marbles scattering on a floor.

Thomas didn’t give an answer.

Jamie produced a small rectangular package, wrapped in plain paper. “I got it for you awhile ago, was waiting for the chance to give it to you. I… I mean, hopefully it doesn’t have the same effect as the stew, you know…” He looked more uncertain than Alex had seen him in a while.

“Oh,” Alex said, frowning. “I mean… is it from… home?” Using that word to describe that place sounded wrong, but what else could you say to your brother?

“Yeah,” Jamie said, running a finger down the side of the package.

“I mean… that would be nice? If you want?” His brain reached for the right words, but they fell just outside his grasp. “Or… please?”

Jamie handed him the present.

Alex’s fingers felt weak as he tried to work the small piece of string tied into a flimsy bow lose. The weight of what he’d been drinking slowed his movements, and he felt very sloppy as he freed the book from its wrappings.

Alex blinked at the present. He hadn’t seen that book in years. Not since before the hurricane. It had gone missing from his bedroom after… what…?

Had Jamie bought him a new copy? No, his fingers found the familiar dent in the cover, the small tear in the bottom corner, and…

He flipped to the cover page.

_ Dear Alex, _

_ Happy 8th birthday! Hope you enjoy this adventure as much as the last one. _

_ Love, _

_ Mama _

Alex tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. “You… how did you find it? It went missing…”

“I found it in a used bookstore last year,” Jamie explained, tentative smile tugging at his lips. “ I figured you wouldn’t have given it up, so maybe it was taken in the looting. I got it for you. I was going to ship it to you, but then…” he shrugged.

Alex looked between his brother and the book, eyes starting to well up. “Th… thank you. Thank you so much. I thought they were all gone.”

He pressed the book close to his chest. Thomas started rubbing soothing circles on his lower back. “You okay, babe?”

Alex nodded. 

Jamie’s smile was relieved. “I was a little worried you wouldn’t want to see it, but… I’m glad I found it for you.”

“Thank you,” Alex said again. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

-/-

“So was there something really special about the book, or…?”

“Not really,” Alex admitted, thumb playing with the corner of the book. They were in bed, the ‘party’ (if that’s what it was) was disbanded. Alex still refused to be far away from the small volume. “It’s just that I didn’t get to keep any of the books I had as a kid. They either got lost after the hurricane or something else happened to them. I also couldn’t really afford to bring any of my books to New York when I moved here, so…” he pressed the small book close to his chest. “And I think this might be the only thing from my mother I actually have now.” He let out a little chuckle and looked at the book again, thumbed through the pages with their massive print and cheap illustrations. “If I’m remembering right, the book wasn’t even that good.”

Thomas laughed, stroking Alex’s back in small circles. “That was really sweet of him.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “It was.” He didn’t want to think about the things his brother’s surprising kindness made him think of, so he set the book down on the nightstand and turned to Thomas. “I was promised I’d get my present from you once we were alone?”

“Right,” Thomas said, getting off the bed and going over to his bag in the corner.

“So what is it?” Alex asked, crawling across the bed and bouncing up and down slightly. “Did you actually get me a dildo?”

Thomas snorted. “No, but I’d be happy to procure either of those if you wanted.” He handed Alex a surprisingly luxe feeling envelope. 

“Jesus Christ, Thomas,” Alex said, joking tone gone as he looked at the balance on the Apple Store gift card. “That’s…”

“About the price of a new laptop,” Thomas said, sitting beside him. “For whenever the one you have now shits the bed.”

“I… I can’t accept this,” Alex said, trying to hand it back. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Not to sound braggy,” Thomas said, lowering his voice, “but you handle my books and know firsthand that that isn’t a lot of money for me. And if you want to use it to buy like fifty pairs of earbuds instead,” he shrugged. “That’s up to you.”

“Right,” Alex said, looking back at the card, “thank you. I really do appreciate that. Though I can’t help but think this is just you sneakily trying to turn me into some sort of iSheep.”

“Oh, maybe,” Thomas said. “I will gentrify you yet.”

“I already use lotion,” Alex said, setting the gift card down by the book and sinking pulling the covers up over their legs. “What else do you want from me, man?”

Thomas smiled and kissed his temple. “When you go with me to get manicures, then we’ll talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what brief flickers of moral superiority are to Alex's headaches.


	10. Thomas Gives Fashion Advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for... I think just his mother being unpleasant and mentally ill?

“Oh my god,” Thomas groaned, letting his head fall back against the wall. “You look fine.”

James turned around in front of the mirror, examining his ass for the millionth time. “You don’t think it’s too tight? I want to look professional but not _ too _professional but also like lowkey imply that I have a lot of money without ever explicitly saying it with my clothes so…” he turned to face himself again. “So.”

“Your shirt looks fine and you can only tell its expensive when you get really close. Your pants are just tight enough that they look well tailored without being obscene. You look like you care, because obviously you do. It’s just a wedding.”

“This’ll be the first time I meet most of her family,” James told him, eyes meeting Thomas’s in the mirror. “I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“They’ll love you,” Thomas said. “What mother wouldn’t want her daughter to marry a consultant?”

“A very Catholic Puerto Rican one,” James said. “You sure I shouldn’t wear the blue one?”

“That one suits your complexion better,” Thomas said. He’d already turned to his phone and was scrolling through his Instagram feed. 

“Are you sure? I’d always heard blue was my color.”

Thomas glanced up. “James, I’m done talking about clothes. You know it’s bad when _ I’m _done talking about clothes.”

James turned away from the mirror. “I’m just nervous. Dolley’s really close with her family. If they don’t like me…”

“Then she’ll get to live out all her rebel fantasies, don’t worry.”

“She’s been weird recently,” James said, tugging at a loose string on his shirt.

Thomas frowned. “Weird like how?”

“She’s been talking about the possibility of moving away. She asked me if I’d be able to do something long distance. She’s thinking about moving to Boston.”

“Boston?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah. She’s been talking about going back to school. And I’ve been supporting her the whole time, because I think she’d really enjoy it, but she’s got this whole deer in the headlights thing sometimes. Like she’s terrified if anything changes I’ll break up with her, which is ridiculous.” He turned to face his reflection again. “I’m just scared she’ll get bored of me.”

“Really?” Thomas asked. “Why?”

“Because I’m a fucking nerd,” James laughed. “She’s hilarious and gorgeous and she has this vibrant social life, and I’m just off in the corner, reading.”

“You’re describing your life like it’s a high school movie.”

“I am the awkward A/V kid and she’s the hot bad girl who’s smoking weed behind the bleachers,” James let out a defeated little huff. “That’s about right.”

“Well...” Thomas said, thinking back on what James was like when they were younger... he wasn’t wrong. “You got the girl in the end, right?”

“I mean, we’ve been dating for a few months. Not sure I’d call that ‘the end.’”

“Fair enough,” Thomas conceded. “But I wouldn’t worry too much. I think it’ll all be fine. Even if she does move to Boston. Where she’ll be surrounded by rich college boys.”

“Not helping.”

“And all those hot professors.”

“Barely 15% of professors are hot.”

“Statistics might be higher in Boston.”

“Why do I ask for your help with anything?”

Thomas just smiled. “Calm down, it’ll be fine. And stop fussing with the shirt, it’ll wrinkle.”

-/-

“I can’t believe I let you have sex with me,” Alex said.

“Oh my god, Alex, it’s fucking gelato.”

“You don’t like coconut gelato,” Alex repeated to himself for the thirtieth time that afternoon. “What sort of deranged fiend doesn’t like coconut gelato?”

“Your strange conflation of personal taste and morality continues to be mystifying,” Thomas deadpanned as he started putting their groceries away.

“Taste in this sort of thing says a lot about a person,” Alex said, opening the drawer in the fridge and tossing the broccoli in. He shut it with a sharp movement. “Shows discernment. Anyone who is incapable of understanding the delicate flavor profile of coconut gelato is susceptible to all sorts of disordered thinking.”

“Must be why I’m dating you,” Thomas muttered. “I just think coconut flavored stuff is too sweet, alright?”

Alex swung a baguette around like a baton and pressed it towards Thomas’s face. “Come out of your cave, sad man, see the world!”

“And yet you don’t like orange sherbert,” Thomas replied, leaning against the counter.

Alex drew back, traumatizing the baguette enough with his movement to cause the poor thing to break in its bag. It hung lip and disfigured as a broken arm at his side. “Orange sherbert tastes like puss from the devil’s inflamed left teat and all those to enjoy it are clearly possessed by some sort of demonic entity.”

Thomas shrugged off the counter and drew himself up to his full weight because he could. “Can you move? I need to put the cans away.”

Alex looked defiant for a moment, then slid out of the way.

“So when are we doing the double date thingy? With Angelica and her boyfriend?” Thomas asked as he started stacking cans of beans.

“Tomorrow at seven, if that works for you,” Alex said, indignation about coconut gelato apparently burnt out of his bloodstream.

“Works for me. At that bourgey sushi place?”

“That’s where Angelica wanted to go, apparently.”

“She’s still dating that British guy, right? The one I met like a month ago?’

“Yeah, John Church. Though I just call him British John or BJ, at least in my head. He’s the one doing the internship for Jones? The one Burr hates for some reason.”

“Oh yeah,” Thomas said, straightening up as he shut the cabinet. “I saw Burr the other day. Forgot to tell you about it.”

“Really?” Alex asked, absently. “Where?”

“At the library. He was with this girl and they were gossiping about you.”

Alex blinked. “About me?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said with a casual shrug. “About you and Washington. Mostly he just sounded annoyed that Washington liked you more.” Thomas considered telling Alex more, but decided against it. Alex was the type to go after people for that shit. Thomas wasn’t sure it was wise.

“Ah,” Alex said, frowning. “Well, he does definitely like me more. I feel like there’s some shit going on I’m not aware of. Maybe I’ll talk to British John about it.”

“Does he know you call him British John?”

“Eh, doesn’t matter either way,” Alex shrugged.

“If only you had that relaxed an attitude about coconut gelato.”

“Coconut gelato is non-negotiable.”

“Ah,” Thomas said. “So have we hit the deal breaker? Can our relationship go no further?”

“Yes. Get out.”

“Can I have dinner first?”

“Fine,” Alex said, starting a pot of water for pasta.

The door to the kitchen opened and Jamie started strolling through. “Hey,” he said, “what’re you making?”

“Just pasta,” Alex said, shoulders tightening imperceptibly as they always did around Jamie.

“Can I help?” Jamie asked, helping himself to the small bag of grapes on the top of the grocery bag they still hadn’t unloaded.

“I think we’re good,” Alex said as Jamie tried to toss a grape in the air and catch it in his mouth. It fell to the floor and rolled under the fridge.

“You sure?” Jamie asked, glancing at Alex from the corner of his eye. “Might be your last chance to be treated to my home cooking.”

Alex frowned. “And why’s that?”

Jamie smiled, catching the second grape. “Because I’ve just secured an apartment by my new job.”

Alex blinked. “You got a new job? Wait, scratch that, you got a _ job _?”

“Yeah,” Jamie said, “in Brooklyn. I should be gone by the end of the week.”

He strolled out of the room.

“Fuck,” Thomas said. “Looks like he actually is getting his shit together.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, eyes trained on the doorway, “I guess he is.”

-/-

_ I don’t know what I’d actually say to you, at this point. What would there be to say? You deserve a better mother? That’s true. That I regret what I did? Sometimes that’s true. I know who I am and I know what I’m like. And I’m not sure I should apologize for keeping you away from me. Is no mother better than a bad mother? Would you have resented me less if I stuck around? I’m sure you resent me, but maybe it’s easier to just hate a ghost. _

Thomas sighed, closing the journal.

Alex glanced up from his laptop, then looked back down at the screen. His fingers flying across the keys made frenzied, broken sort of drum beats above the squeal of the fans.

“What do you think of your father these days?” Thomas asked.

“Mmmm?” Alex asked. “What was that?”

“Your dad? Like, I know you were really resentful for a long time, but what do you think about him now?”

Alex bit his lip. “It’s kind of… complicated, I guess. I mean, I’m not really mad at him anymore, per se. I still think what he pulled on my mother and me was bullshit.”

“And Jamie?” Thomas added.

Alex glanced over at him, then away. “And Jamie. Mostly it’s more that I feel sorry for him, you know? He isn’t the person he always thought he would be. He’s never going to be the person he wants to be. There’s always something sad about him. Why do you ask?”

“I’m trying to figure out how the fuck I’m supposed to feel about my mother.”

“Ah,” Alex said, nodding. “Maybe just cut the words _ supposed to _ out and go from there. There aren’t really rules.”

“Aren’t I supposed to love her unconditionally?”

“Nah,” Alex said with a wave of his hand. “That’s just something they say to sell cards.”

Thomas chuckled, but his eyes were back at the journal. Sometimes he felt like he was in an endless staring contest with the thing.

“How do you feel about her right now?” Alex asked.

“Confused,” Thomas answered.

“Yeah,” Alex laughed. “I’m not sure that once ever goes away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what worrying about everything is to James.


	11. Alex Goes Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for arbitrary and imaginary exercises that I ... absolutely not a mental health professional ... invented for funzies.

Alex luxerated in the warmth of Thomas’s car. 

The hospital his testing appointment was set up for was outside of the city and Thomas volunteered himself as a chauffeur. Alex never turned down heated seats.

The greys and browns and blacks of the city streaked by as Thomas negotiated their way through traffic. Alex was still a little woozy from the procedure, simple as it had been. He resisted the urge to poke his bandage, just to see if it still hurt.

They’d fallen into a comfortable silence, just the hum of the engine and the fans pushing hot air at them. Alex nuzzled down into his hoodie.

His movement jostled the paper he’d had in the hoodie pocket, and the folded square fell out.

The movement must have caught Thomas’s eye. “What’s that?” 

“Mmmm?” Alex glanced down at it and unfolded the old sheet. “Oh, that’s an exercise my therapist wanted me to try. I forgot about it. Essentially, she wants me to make a list of all the people in my life, and try to come up with a single word about the way they make me feel.”

“That’s… interesting.”

“I think the idea is to get me to root out any toxic relationships. Or something,” Alex said, sitting up a bit straighter.

“Ah,” Thomas said. “Have you come up with any toxic people yet?”

“Not yet, no,” Alex said. “Though I haven’t done it yet, so it’s anyone’s game at this point. You want to give it a try?”

Thomas cast an interested glance down at the paper. “Maybe.”

Alex smiled, sitting up. “Okay, let’s start with mutual friends, then. Laf?”

Thomas paused. “Warm.”

“Mmmm,” Alex agreed. “I’d say loving.”

“Ooooh, we’re bringing out the big guns early, aren’t we?”

Alex shrugged. “He’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, and he loved people in such a pure and simple way. He loves me, I love him. It’s not a sexual or expectant thing, or anything. It’s just love.”

“I know what you mean. I feel the same way… though I actually did fuck him.”

Alex laughed. “Herc?”

“Safe,” Thomas said.

“Homey.”

“You calling him ugly?” Thomas gave Alex a playful look before his eyes turned back to the street.

“ _ Home-y _ , ya prick.”

“That’s an interesting choice.”

“He was one of the first people I lived with stateside, so….”

“Ah.”

“Safe is a close second, though. I was… I was kinda vulnerable at the beginning, you know? When I first came to America. He made me feel like I was gonna be alright. Like I could really build a home here.”

Thomas nodded. “How about Angelica?”

“Challenging.”

“Good one.”

“You?”

“Terrified.”

Alex chuckled. “Really? Still?”

“Not really, no. Inspired, maybe? Intimidated?”

“I used to have the biggest crush on her,” Alex admitted.

“Really?”

“Really. Back before I dated Eliza. And also sort of after I dated Eliza. And maybe still a little bit now.”

“Anything I should be worried about?”

“Nah. She’s got herself a tall, strapping Englishman. I couldn’t ever compete.”

“And you’ve got yourself a tall, strapping Virginian, so you wouldn't even want to.”

“Exactly,” Alex said with an easy grin.

“If only I didn’t have to feed those words into your mouth.”

“It’s not the only thing you can feed into my mouth.”

“Later. What about Eliza?”

“Eliza?” Alex paused. “Eliza.”

“Eliza. I barely know her, but you…”

“Yeah. Regret.”

“Mmmm?”

“Regret. That’s the word I’d used for her.”

“Regretting what, exactly?”

“How I treated her… the infidelity… how it all ended.’

“Oh,” Thomas’s voice was suspiciously neutral.

In the warmth and stillness of that movement, Alex finally managed to gather the courage to drop the question that had been bumping around in his head for a while.

“Does it ever bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“That I cheated on her. Eliza, I mean. Do you ever… I mean, do you ever think less of me for it?”

Thomas was quiet for a while. “I… I don’t think less of you, no. Not really.”

“No?”

“No,” Thomas said. “I don’t really think about it often.”

“Huh,” Alex said.

They’d come to a red light. Thomas looked a him. “Did… did you ever cheat on John?”

Alex frowned. “No, why?”

“Just wondering.”

“I don’t make a habit of it,” Alex said, glancing into passing cars as they started moving again.

“I know, I know. That’s not… just forget it…”

But Alex was curious. “Is it like… because it was more recent or you just wanted to know if I did it often or… ?”

“It’s stupid,” Thomas said.

“Well now you have to tell me.”

“You’ll be mad.”

“When has that stopped you?”

“It’s different because this time I know I’m wrong.”

Alex smiled and tried to ignore the tugging in his gut. “You’ve finally come to your senses, eh? I knew one day you’d like coconut gelato.”

Thomas laughed. “Yes. I have seen the light. Let’s talk about the next person…”

“No, you still have to tell me.”

Thomas bit his lip. “You will  _ actually  _ be mad. It’s a shitty thing I have to work on.”

“I don’t care. Tell me,” Alex leaned over the center console.

“Fine!” Thomas said, pushing Alex away and laughing. “Fine,” he cast Alex an anxious glance before turning back to the road. “I don’t think of your relationship with Elza the way I think about your relationship with John. Or me.”

Alex furrowed his brow. “Why? Because I was younger?”

“No… because she’s a girl.”

Alex blinked. “Really? That a sexist thing?”

“More just… it doesn’t feel as ‘real’ to me. Since I’ve only dated men.”

Alex let out a derisive snort. “Oh… wow. So it’s a biphobic thing.”

Thomas winced. “Look, I know it’s wrong, alright?”

“You do know it’s no different to me, right? Someone’s bits doesn’t have any effect on how I feel about them.”

“I know, I know…”

But Alex was on a roll. “So it’s not like it was less shitty of me to cheat on her. It’s all the same.”

“I know.”

“Your penis doesn’t make you immune to a wandering eye… and wait shit that came out wrong oh god…”

Thomas laughed, scrambling to regain some sort of moral high ground. “Should I be worried?”

“No, absolutely not. Holy shit. So,” he cleared his throat. “Since we’ve found ourselves on the topic of exes, what about yours?”

“Oh… uh…” Thomas trailed off. “Sean would be bitter.”

“Bitter.”

“Because whenever I think of him, all I can think of are the bits of me that broke or rotted because of him.”

“Jesus,” Alex murmured. “That’s deep.”

“Also his cum tasted like shit.”

Alex snorted.

“Dillion would be… unfinished.”

“You want to head back to Virginia and finish up some business?”

“No… it’s done -- but just like how a kitchen someone stopped renovating in the ‘70s is ‘done.’”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“So… John?”

“Right,” Alex rubbed his shoulder. “I was wondering when that would come up… John. I guess the word I would use is hopeful.”

“Hopeful?”

“Yeah, hopeful. Our friendship is in a recovery period right now but it’s still recovering. And it makes me hopeful that I’ll get my best friend back And even before… everything that happened… John always makes it impossible not to imagine a better world. It’s just the sort of person he is. It’s hard not to get caught up in his ideas.”

“James is a bit like that.”

“What’s the word you’d use for him?”

“Supportive. Man’s the closest thing I’ve got to scaffolding.”

Alex snorted. “Dolley?”

“Vibrant.

“Spicy.”

“Spicy?”

“Girl feels like the human equivalent of taking a swing of hot sauce sometimes.”

Thomas laughed. “That makes a little sense. What about family? Your dad?”

“Cautionary. Yours?”

“Demonstrative. Mother?”

“Tragical.” Alex paused. “...yours?”

“Topagraphical.”

“What?”

“Peaks and valleys.”

“Oh shit, we’re getting metaphorical out here. From now on, am I only allowed to answer questions in iambic pentameter?”

“Fuck off.”

Alex smiled.

Thomas sighed. “Ned?”

“Competitive.”

“Shannon?”

“Vital. Jamie?”

Alex’s phone dinged. He glanced down at the notification and laughed at the timing. 

**Hey. New housing thing fell through. Is it okay if I stay a bit longer? Also could you help me out a bit? I put down a deposit for the new place and the landlord is a piece of shit and won’t give it back so I’m a little strapped right now. 1500? I’ll pay you back when I get paid.**

Alex sighed. “Tired. He makes me feel tired.”

-/-

“Alex!” Angelica embraced him, “you never come to the bakery anymore! That’s unacceptable.”

“Why aren’t you yelling at Thomas? He’s not there everyday either.”

“Yeah, but we used to work together, so I’m already sick of him.”

“Ouch, Schuyler,” Thomas said, slinging his jacket across the back of his chair, “that’s low.”

“You sick of me yet?” Alex asked, turning to British John. “Familiarity breeds concept and all that?”

“Nah,” British John said, “figure you’ve probably got a good month left before I can’t stand the sight of you.”

Alex sat. “Is that like a time scale thing, do I have a deadline? Or is it more actual hours spent? Could I drag it out for a few months by limiting the amount of time I spend around you?”

“I think it’s more of a quality thing than a quantity thing,” Angelica observed, settling into her chair. “Aaron Burr burned through his month in, what? An hour?”

“My dear Angelica,” British John sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It was at least two, certainly.”

“Does he send you hourly updates on how little he can stand the guy every day as well?” Thomas asked. 

“Honey,” Angelica began in pitying tones, “I think you’ve forgotten what it’s like to date a normal person. He just complains about him when he gets home…” she considered something for a moment, then added with a considering tilt of her head, “and invents conspiracy theories.”

“Hey,” British John said, “I didn’t invent a thing.”

The waiter came by with water and hot towels, and Alex was left staring at British John in confusion until they’d put in their drink and appetizer order.

“Conspiracy theories?” he asked as the waiter turned away. “Conspiracy theories about Burr? What, do you think he’s secretly working for the government or something? A member of the illuminati? Alien escaped from Area 51? Because he does have a really weird way of drinking water...”

“Oh my god — right?” British John leaned in. “He’s so fucking dainty — but no,” he shook his head, and when their eyes met again, he looked very serious. “That’s not it. It’s a concern I’ve wanted to share with you for a while, but I never knew when to bring it up. Guess now’s as good as ever.” British John glanced around the room, as if checking to see if Burr had snuck in behind them and was waiting around the corner, listening to their conversation.

“Alright, then what’s your theory?”

“I think he might be taking bribes from some of the students. Like for grading.”

Alex’s face felt cold. “That’s…”

“Think about it. He does all of the grading, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s because — “

“Washington put him in charge of it, I know. I asked.”

“You asked Washington?” Alex’s stomach dropped. 

“No, I asked Burr. That’s why he hates me so much. He thinks I’m on to him.”

Alex figured that likely wasn’t the only reason Burr hated him, but he decided against saying anything.

“So why do you suspect him of accepting bribes? Just because he could hypothetically do it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he  _ did  _ do it.”

“Ah,” John stood up a little taller, looking rather proud of himself. “A few weeks ago, I was going over to your office for… something… and one of Washington’s students was walking out of the room, rather quickly, looking guilty. When I went into the office, Burr was putting his wallet back into his pocket. What possible reason would he have to have his wallet out in an office?”

“Amazon purchase?” Thomas suggested, breaking apart his chopsticks as the waiter approached with tempura.

“Vending machine?” Alex shrugged, though his mind was elsewhere…  _ it wasn’t impossible… _

“Never saw that PSA about how it’s a really bad idea to keep a condom in a wallet?” Angelica plucked a fried carrot from the plate and dipped it in the little square dish of sauce.

Alex glanced over at her. “If he’s fucking her that’s a whole nother ethics issue… I’m assuming it was a her?” He looked over at British John, leaned forward. “Oh my god please tell me it was a boy.”

British John clicked his tongue and gave an apologetic shrug. “Sorry Hammy, but it was a girl — if that is what went down — I mean, we can’t all be gay.”

“Not with that attitude, we can’t,” Thomas said. “And wait, who was the student?”

“Huh? Oh, Tia. The older one.”

“Theodosia?” Thomas pressed. “Is that her full name?”

“Yeah,” British John looked surprised. “Do you know her?”

Thomas turned to Alex. “She’s the one who was with him in the library. Remember, that time I ran into him?”

“Really?” Alex sat back, stomach turning. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” British John agreed. “I think something’s happening. Would you be willing to look into it? You’ve got access to more stuff than I do.”

Alex cut a slice of sweet potato up with his chopsticks. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what conspiracy theories are to British John.


	12. Thomas Pays a Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for smut and reckless laptop ownership.

Dolley’s pacing was starting to get annoying.

The bakery had closed hours ago, but she’d called him there for an ‘important meeting,’ so Thomas was sitting on the counter in the kitchen, watching as her form moved in the minimal lighting coming from a few recessed lights running along the walls. “So…” she said, heels clicking as she turned sharply to face him, “ you promise never to ask for the money back? It’s a gift, not a loan.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, for the fifth time.

“And you’re cool with me doing something useless with it?”

“Yup.”

“And you don’t mind if I just go back to being a pastry chef?”

“Why the fuck would I want to live in a world without your cupcakes?”

Dolley’s smile was warm as asphalt in August. “I take back everything I’ve ever said about you, you’re an amazing friend.”

“Gee,” Thomas deadpanned, “thanks.”

She hugged him, and Thomas patted her back, giving into the mess of perfume petticoats.

“Have you figured out where you want to go?”

“I’ve put out a few applications,” she said, leaning against the edge of the kitchen’s central table, “but I won’t hear back for a while. So maybe I won’t even get in to any of them.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get into one,” Thomas said. “A lot of schools have very high acceptance rates.”

“Fuck off,” she said, punching his arm.

“Ow,” he replied, trying to sound joking, but still rubbing his bicep. That actually hurt.

“Now I’ve just gotta find a way to let it not fuck my relationship up with James.”

“Have you ever done long distance before?”

“No, like, I avoid it. Because you always hear it fucks things up, you know? But… I don’t know… I feel like I could, with him. Or at least I’d want to try. Have you ever…?”

“Mmmm?”

“Have you ever done long distance?”

“Not really,” Thomas said, “unless you count the weeks that I was in Virginia.”

“I don’t count those.”

“Well.”

“...”

“...”

“I’m kind of scared.”

“Why?”

“I like him.”

“You should.”

“I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“Then don’t.”

Dolley glared at him. 

“Sorry,” Thomas said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Boston isn’t that far, and he can’t do better than you. Also his self esteem is low enough that he won’t look.”

“Do the world a favor and never become a shrink.”

“Do yourself a favor and stop worrying about it. The fact that you care so much is a good sign. And every time I’m around him he’s talking about how great you are and how scared he is that he’ll lose you. So thanks for taking my best friend.”

“You’re welcome. I’m not giving him back.”

“Good. So don’t worry about it. Just get your stupid liberal arts degree and make him feel intellectually inferior. It’s the natural order of things.”

Dolley laughed. “Thanks, Thomas. For the support.”

“No problem.”

“And also for the actual thousands of dollars.”

“Right. You’re welcome for that too.”

Dolley laughed quietly in the dark room. “This is such a weird situation.”

“I mean, the dark lighting definitely gives it a drug deal feel.”

“Speaking of drugs, how is Jamie?”

“Jesus Christ,” Thomas laughed.

“C’mon. He  _ has _ to be up to something sketchy.”

Thomas just shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just doing what Alex says.”

Dolley made a whipping sound effect.

“Fuck off.”

Dolley laughed. “Didn’t you have to go meet him?” She looked at her phone. “You had a date thingy? You were bitching about it when I asked you to come over and talk to me.”

“He’s still doing shit for his internship,” Thomas said. “We’re supposed to get late night drinks… it’ll probably become late late night drinks, knowing his working habits, but I should probably still go.”

“Right,” Dolley said, reaching for her coat.

Thomas bundled up and went for the door.

“And Thomas?”

“Mmmm?”

“Thanks again. Really. You’re a good friend.”

-/-

Alex was in his natural habitat, of course -- hacking away at his computer, eyes trained forward with an intensity matched only by laser beams and sun flares. Hair a mess, scattered notes in every direction. He was using what appeared to be a broken floor tile as a makeshift sort of pot holder, half a pot of coffee resting on top.

Thomas knocked on the doorframe. “Have you finally found the last digit of pi?”

“Nah,” Alex said, picking up the pot and drinking from it directly, “won’t get there for at least another hour.”

Thomas laughed. “How much stuff do you have to do tonight?”

Alex sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

“That much?”

Alex just nodded.

“Do you want to call off date night, then?”

“I mean,” Alex checked his phone, “bars won’t start closing for a few hours, sad bars won’t start closing until even later. I can probably be done by one? If you wanted to wait or hang out or… I don’t know.”

“Can I take Burr’s chair? Or will I explode?”

“Just put some newspaper down, or something.”

“Right.” Thomas wandered over to the other desk, eyes scanning the tidy work surface. “Did you ever get around to that snooping?”

“Mmmm?”

“That British John asked you to do, remember?”

“Oh right,” Alex said. “I haven’t, not yet. Bit scared to, to be honest. Also been busy,” he rubbed his eyes. “Always busy.”

Thomas ran his fingers along the seam separating the drawer from the rest of the desk, “mind if I…?”

Alex glanced up. “I should say no…”

“Are you going to?” Thomas asked with a raised brow.

“Why do you want to know so much?”

“Because I’m a curious person. And also bored.”

“You’ve been here, like, thirty seconds.”

“And?”

“Oh for fuck sakes. Fine.”

Thomas smiled and opened the drawer.

“Wow,” Thomas said.

“What?”

“This isn’t what I was expecting at all.”

Alex shut his laptop. “What?”

“I mean… I knew he was kind of sketchy… but this?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Now I get why British John hates him so much, oh my god this could be the thing that sinks him. We need to take pictures. Or get a warrant. Can you get a warrant for a desk?”

Alex strode over to the desk, “what are you talking a-- oh fuck off you piece of shit.” Alex slammed the empty drawer shut. “That isn’t nice.”

Thomas placed a patronizing kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead. “But look, you got your five steps for the day.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

Alex didn’t answer, just returned to his desk.

“Seriously, though,” Thomas said as he started looking through the other drawers. “How does he have nothing in his desk? Like, what sort of psychopath is this? Oh wait, there’s a stapler.” He looked up, presenting the stapler as if he doubted Alex would believe it existed. “What sort of psychopath keeps a stapler in a drawer?”

“You know, you really aren’t acting like someone who wants his boyfriend to get his work done.”

“Well that’s what I get for championing active communication in a relationship.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Fuck off.”

“You fuck off.”

Alex blew him a kiss.

“Guess I’ll keep my thoughts to myself,” he said as he opened the last drawer.

“Starting with that one?”

“How often do they take out the trash here?”

“Every day, I think,” Alex said. “Why?”

“Basket’s pretty full,” Thomas said, setting the small thing up on the desk.

“You’re seriously going to rifle through his garbage?”

“Well, I was going to rifle through his desk but his creepily tidy habits have rendered that impossible. I have to take what I can get. Aagh,” he said, plucking a few crumpled balls of paper off the top, “he doesn’t even recycle.”

“Gross.”

Thomas started straightening out the papers. “Even his trash is kind of boring… like, no candy wrappers or… oh my god, ew.” Thomas withdrew his hand from the basket. 

“What?”

“There’s something cold and slimy in there, I think it might be…” he batted a piece of paper out of the way. Wrinkled his nose. “Yup. That’s a condom.”

“Wait,” Alex stood up, “really?” He moved over to Thomas’s side. “That’s… mmmm.”

“Think he’s fucking that Theodosia chick?”

“Or her and other people, yeah.” Alex rubbed his eyes. “Shit. That’s not great.”

“You gonna tell on him?”

“I mean, we can’t prove that he was having sex with a student, only that he was having sex. All this proves is that he has no class.”

“Didn’t we agree that we’d have sex here some time?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “And I have no class. That’s why I’m dating you.”

“You know, Hamilton, if you keep saying that shit eventually you’re going to hurt my feelings.”

Alex ignored him. “Bathroom’s down the hall if you want to wash your hands.”

-/-

“But what’s even the process, if he is sleeping with her? Like, what’re the consequences for that?” Thomas was lying on the office floor, staring up at the cheap ceiling tiles. After the excitement of his investigation of Burr’s desk, there was little else to do in the office while waiting for Alex to finish up.

“I don’t actually know,” Alex said, fingers continuing to fly across the keyboard. “He might lose his internship, or not. His family has some old connections around here. Lots of money and wings of shit. So probably nothing.”

“You sound very resigned.”

“Rich bastards getting their way with no consequences is kind of a fact of life in my line of work… lines of work. And honestly, him having sex with some student doesn’t bother me that much. Maybe it should, but fucking whatever. They’re adults and I’m tired. Mostly I’m just angry he beat me to having sex in here.”

“We should retaliate by having better sex.”

“Once I’m done with these emails, we’re going to have mind blowing sex.”

“Spectacular sex.”

“The kind of universe-bending sex that can only come with careful deliberation and forethought.”

“God I love it when you talk practical.”

Alex laughed. “We’re never going to make it to that fucking bar, are we?”

“I’ll fix you a drink when we get home. It’s cheaper.”

“Fuck it,” Alex pushed his laptop aside.

Thomas pressed a kiss to his throat. “Commence lovemaking?”

“Commence lovemaking,” Alex confirmed. “I’ll just have to retroactively clock out. Getting OT for this would sort of feel like prostitution.”

“Hmmm, I’ll give you  _ my _ time and a half.”

“Oh my god,” Alex said, exposing more of his neck as Thomas’s lips worked their way down. “You’ve found it. The most perfect boner-killing pun.”

“Boner-killing?” Thomas asked, hands going down to Alex’s crotch. “You sure about that?” He palmed his hardness through his jeans. Alex shifted beneath his touch.

“Mmmmm,” Alex sighed.

Thomas undid his jeans and moved his hand down into Alex’s underwear, stroking him lightly, thumb playing with his tip.

“Aaaah, door. G-get the door. Lock it,” Alex said.

Thomas withdrew with a kiss to Alex’s cheek, and went to slide the latch on the door into place. Arms wrapped around his waist as he did so.

“We doing this against the door?” Thomas laughed as Alex’s hands started to travel south.

Alex just flipped him around, pressing Thomas’s back against the office door. He kissed Thomas, long and hard and hot, and sank to his knees.

Thomas let his head fall back against the hard wood of the door as Alex brought his cock out of his jeans and started placing kitten licks along his length.

He sighed, weaving his fingers through the tangled mess of a ponytail at the back of Alex’s head. Alex glanced up at him through his lashes as he hollowed out his cheeks and swallowed.

“Fuck,” Thomas hissed. “Wanna fuck you so bad.”

Alex took him down one more time before releasing him, placing a dainty kiss to his head.

He took Thomas’s hand and brought them back to the desk. Alex hopped up on the hard surface. “Lube’s in the bottom drawer,” he said conversationally.

“Well,” Thomas said, finding it in a mess of files, “let’s hope Burr isn’t going through your desk.

“Guess I’m not gonna be able to fault him for having sex in the office after this,” Alex said.

Thomas grabbed both of his thighs and yanked him towards him, bringing their mouths together. He could taste himself on Alex’s lips. His hands went down to Alex’s belt, tossing it somewhere behind him. Alex lifted his hips so he could pull down his pants and off his legs.

Thomas kneeled down in front of him, pushing Alex’s legs apart and admiring his hardness, flush and red at the tip, down to the heaviness of his balls, and down and down and down…

He placed a kiss right where Alex’s ass became Alex’s leg, and whispered against the sensitive skin, “can I start prepping you.”

“Fuck, yes…  _ please _ …” Alex groaned.

Thomas lubed up his fingers, and started. One finger, moving slowly in and out, until Alex demanded a second. Then a third.

As he sank the third finger in, he took Alex in his mouth.

“Aaaagh!” Alex’s hand curled around some corner of the desk, hips pressing up in response. “Jesus Christ -- just fuck me already!”

Thomas wasn’t about to object.

He stood and flipped Alex over, laughing at the little mewling yelp Alex released at being manhandled like that. Applied some lube to himself. Lined them up. Thrust.

“Fuck,” he hissed as he sank into the tight heat, fighting to stay still as Alex adjusted beneath him.

“God,” Alex whispered after a moment, face buried in some pile of papers he was probably going to have to print again. “ _ Move. _ ”

And Thomas did.

Alex looked so pretty sprawled across the desk like that, Thomas decided as he fucked him, hands constantly trying to find some purchase and inevitably unable to as Thomas’s thrusts moved his body.

Thomas gripped his hips and pounded him, meanwhile Alex was continually demanding  _ faster, harder, don’t you dare fucking stop _ .

It was a goddamned mess, and Thomas loved it.

On one particularly enthusiastic thrust, Alex splayed his hands out far to try to stay on the fucking desk, and they both froze as a loud banging sound broke up the chorus of  _ fucks _ and groans and gasps.

Alex’s laptop was lying on the ground, screen a mess of black and white, keyboard jutting out at an unnatural angle.

“Fuck,” Thomas whispered.

Alex gestured for Thomas to get off him. Thomas complied. 

Alex knelt down beside the laptop, cock still hard, bottom half of his body still naked, and cradled the laptop in his arms like a dying comrade.

“Can you -- fuck -- can we go to a repair place?” Thomas said, pulling his pants up and grabbing Alex’s clothes. “Is anything even open right now?”

Alex shook his head mutely and started picking up the few pieces of stray hardware that had settled on the carpet. “I think it’s just dead,” Alex said, hands shaking. 

Thomas placed a hand on his shoulder, crouching beside him, “are you okay?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. Guess I’m not getting any more work done tonight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what fantasies of full boat scholarships are to I'm guessing 90% of my readers.


	13. Alex Gets the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for panic attacks and brief mentions of drugs.

“Dearly beloved,” Laf intoned, “we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a dear member of our family, taken from us far too soon and gone forever. Here to say a few words is the departed’s dearest friend.”

Alex stepped away from the small crowd, exchanging a quick hug with John before turning to face the gathering. “We met when I was still in high school. He helped me through some of my hardest years, without complaint. He was always there for me, ready to help whenever I needed to work, no matter the time of day. He showed me the world, helped me keep my head, apply for jobs, get into the internship. I never would have been able to do all that I’ve done without him. But all good things must come to an end. It is time to lay my friend to rest. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Thomas, Hercules, Lafayette, James, Dolley, and John muttered, “Amen.” They were all dressed in black and huddled together in the winter air like a murder of crows.

Jamie was leaning against the doorframe separating John and Alex’s small balcony from the apartment, wearing black sweats and looking too confused to join the group and too polite to say anything.

“Thomas, my love, if you would,” Alex gestured towards the cardboard box he’d been keeping his laptop in since its fan coughed its final sputtering breath two days prior.

Thomas knelt down and closed the box, hauling it up on his shoulder. Laf took the other side in a somber show of solidarity and they turned towards the door. Jamie jumped out of the way as the funeral procession re-entered the apartment: first Laf and Thomas, bearing the body of the deceased, then Dolley and James, with Herc humming a funeral hymn behind them. Alex brought up the rear, leaning against John, who handed him a tissue.

Thomas brought the box back down to his car.

By the time they got back up stairs, a small party had broken out. Laf had put a small arrangement of crackers and fruit out and someone had brought wine. With all the black, they looked like a group of hipsters at some sort of underground art opening.

“So,” Dolley said, balancing a small stack of triscuits and brie on the edge of her wine glass as she reached for a strawberry. “What’s the mourning period for an old laptop? How long before you can wear grey again?”

“I’m picking up my laptop at the apple store today,” Alex said, pouring himself a glass.

“Wow,” she said, “that’s quick.”

“Ah, well, we all grieve differently, and I’ve got shit to do,” Alex said with a shrug.

“Who would have guessed you’d be so heartless?”

“Have you met him?” Jamie quipped, having adjusted quickly to the free food aspect of the get together, he was making a little cracker sandwich.

“Fair.”

“Ouch,” Alex said, pressing a hand to his heart. “Why would you choose to pick on the widow?”

“Are you going to cover all the mirrors, at least? Show some respect? What are the other mourning things? My history classes are escaping me.” Dolley, who was wearing a black corset and veil, tapped her completely superfluous black fan against her chin.

“How many funerals a week can your wardrobe accommodate, without repeating outfits?” Alex asked. “I’m asking for a friend.”

“Six and a half,” she answered, “unless you count shoes.”

“Right.”

“Unfortunately I don’t.”

“Unfortunately?”

Dolley shrugged, then got sidelined by some joke John made nearby.

“Laughing at a funeral,” Jamie tsked as she walked away.

“You didn’t even bother to wear a tie,” Alex said.

“Ah, well… can’t be perfect. Oh! Before I forget…” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a beaten looking brown leather wallet. “I finally found a new job, so I can pay you back for some of the food and housing and… everything…”

“You don’t have to…” Alex said lamely as Jamie shoved some bills into his hand.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, before walking away, downing the rest of his wine as he went.

Alex looked down at the money in his hand, nervous tingles dancing across his skin as he counted it.

Four perfectly crisp, brand new hundred dollar bills.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself.

-/-

  
  


_ “Hey, Alexander, how’re ya? It’s Dr. Stamos, giving you the results of your test. You do appear to be a match, so if you just want to get in contact with our office, we can go ahead with the transplant. Have a nice day.” _

Alex had to play the message again to be sure he heard it right.

“Babe?” Thomas asked, looking up from his book. “You alright?”

“I’m a match.”

“You’re a -- oh,” Thomas’s eyes scanned the room, even though they both knew Jamie wasn’t there -- he was off doing… something. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, that’s good but…”

“Shit,” Alex said.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah. Are you… okay?”

“Sure,” Alex said, yanking the corners of his lips up into what was strictly speaking a smile, “why not?”

“Is there anything I can... ?”

“I mean, unless you want to cure cancer, delete my memory of this moment and rewrite my genetics, I don’t think you really can, no.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What is there to talk about?”

“I don’t know… feelings and shit?”

“My feeling is  _ shit _ .”

“Right.”

-/-

“And you’re sure you’ll be okay?”

“Jesus Christ, I’m your boyfriend, not your dog. I think I’ll live.”

“It’s just strange,” Thomas said, tucking the last ungodly magenta shirt into his bag and zipping it closed. “We haven’t really spent much time away from each other recently.”

“I know, don’t know how I managed to not murder you.”

“I mean, I’m sure you’ve thought about it a few times.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “You’ve got your check in info and everything?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Fuck off.”

Thomas smiled. “Love you too.” He checked his phone. “James is here. Gotta go.”

“Enjoy your stupid conference.”

“James’ll be enjoying the stupid conference. I will be enjoying the hotel hot tub.”

“Dolley wasn’t offended that James chose you as his conference date instead of her?”

“She had to stay in town for some random bullshit, I’m not 100% sure what it was. I’m the second choice.”

“Ah, well I guess you’ll have to put extra effort into the consolation blow job. Make sure he sticks around.”

“Been practicing on bananas all week.”

A car horn sounded from outside.

“Your chariot awaits.”

Thomas pressed a quick kiss to Alex’s forehead, and then he was gone.

It was a good thing Alex wasn’t clingy, or he might have felt very alone in those first few moments after Thomas walked away.

Yeah, it was a good thing he wasn’t like that.

-/-

It had always amazed Alex how quickly chaotic noise could become radio silence. 

The last few weeks of his life had been like twenty people screaming at him all at once. Work was a tidal wave and he was a surfer just skilled enough to stay upright as the sea pushed him towards shore.

But then Thomas went away, and somehow he was caught up on internship stuff, and there was nothing to do but be alone with his thoughts.

Jamie was in the shower, his sharp body wash permeating the air all the way to the kitchen. Alex’s hands were washing dishes on autopilot.

John was somewhere with his boyfriend.

The apartment was quiet, which meant that the only things in Alex’s mind were his own thoughts. A less than ideal situation.

Sometimes Alex wondered if anxious people ever calmed down or just forgot to be anxious.

That nervous stone in his stomach. The dense feeling in his chest. The sandpaper sensation in his brain. For no fucking reason.

_ Motherfucker. _

What was there to be anxious about? Things were fine. Why was he freaking out? Why couldn’t he just get over it? Why was this always so shitty? Why couldn’t he just move on? Was this going to be his life? Was he just going to have to deal with this bullshit for the rest of his life? Was this who he was? Why couldn’t he ever recover? What was wrong with him?

_ Nothing’s wrong. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. _

Like, what could he possibly be thinking about? What could possibly be wrong? Was it John? Things were okay with John or where they or no was it Jamie? The test  _ oh my god he’s not actually my brother what the fuck what do I do is he selling drugs he’s probably selling drugs do I get to kick him out becuase he’s not my brother what the fuck what’s wrong with me why would I think that I’m still the good brother even if he stole from me I need to breathe and breathe breathe breathe don’t freak out breathe… _

He dropped the plate into the water. The little droplets of warm soap hitting him might as well have been bullets as he started wheezing  _ oh come on for fuck’s sake you’re so broken why are you like this like this like this… _

_ What’s wrong with me?! _

Coughing into the water, Alex was happy momentarily that he’d forgotten to eat dinner that night. There was nothing to come up but coffee. His body strained under the pressure of his thoughts, lungs screaming for air as his mind tried to justify its actions.

He could have a hundred of these, he realized as he started falling to the ground, and they’d all be as bad as the first one.  _ You never get better at them. _

_ You never get better. _

_ You’ll never get better. _

_ Why are you like this? _

Steam filled the kitchen, making breathing even harder. Alex curled up in a ball, trying to hide his tear-streaked face from Jamie.

Damp arms encircled him, and he started rocking.

“Hey,” came Jamie’s voice, gentle and quiet, “hey. It’s okay.”

Alex heaved. Why the fuck not? Might as well embarrass himself in front of Jamie. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Can you try breathing slower? One, two, three…”

“Four, five…  _ agh  _ … six,” Alex counted through sobs, “seven…”

“Didn’t know you were still having these,” Jamie said, hands rubbing circles on his younger brother’s back.

Alex let out a loud, ugly sob, face heating even more. He pressed his forehead to his knees.

“In and out, c’mon, Alex. In and out.”

Alex did his best deep inhale, then let the breath out in a shuddering gasp, trying to mop up some of the tears with the end of his sleeve.

“What brought it on?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, furious and humiliated, “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know!”

“Hey, hey,” Jamie’s voice was so kind and soothing it made Alex want to punch something. “It’s okay. Sometimes this just happens.”

“It never happens to you,” Alex said, trying to regulate his own breathing. The air caught in his throat and he was on all fours, retching onto the cheap tile.

“One, two, three…” Jamie counted.

“I hate this,” Alex said.

“I know. Four, five, six…”

“Seven, eight, nine,” Alex took a deep breath. 

Jamie wrapped his arms around him and started rocking him again, and slowly Alex came back down.

“Thank you,” Alex said at length. “For helping me with… yeah.”

“Of course. That’s what brothers are for.”

Alex winced. “Right.”

“I still remember your first one. That night I was babysitting you? While mum was at work?”

“You babysat me most nights.”

“I mean, fair enough… so, you think it’s passed?”

“I think so,” Alex said, standing up to get some water.

“You want to watch a movie or something?”

“That sounds nice.”

“With snacks?”

“Snacks also sound nice.”

“I’ll go get snacks.”

And so Alex was tasked with setting up some random stupid move on Netflix while Jamie went down to the corner store to buy chips and beer.

And if Alex had just sat there and stared at the screen and waited for his brother like a good boy, what would have happened next never would have happened.

But Jamie’s bag was open, which never happened. And Alex was sitting on the couch right next to it, which rarely happened. And the lamp was illuminating the contents in a strange way. And something caught his eye.

And so that’s how Alex ended up rifling through his brother’s things.

And that’s how Alex found the bag of cocaine in his brother’s carryon.

And, of course, that moment was when Jamie came home.

“What the fuck are you doing?!?! Why are you going through my things?” Jamie tossed the chips on the counter and let the beer fall to the floor with a  _ thud _ .

But Alex too angry to be on the defensive. “What am  _ I  _ doing? What are  _ you _ doing?!”

And Jamie had already decided on his argument. “Why were you going through my things?”

Alex tossed the bag on the coffee table. “What the  _ fuck  _ is wrong with you? If I got caught with this shit in my apartment I could get deported! How could you be so selfish?”

Jamie let out a barking laugh. “That’s right, Alex, I’m selfish. Perfect, brilliant Alexander would never do something like that. It must have been hard, being such a genius stuck on that rock with the rest of us. I bet you told all your New York friends you worked your way off. You just fixed everything for yourself. The perfect American story. Did you tell them about the money our aunt was giving you? Or how Hugh Knox was writing all those letters of recommendation? The favors Mum’s bosses were calling in for you? Or how there was a fucking coffee can next to every register in St. Croix for a goddamn year because you were just too good to languish away with the rest of us?”

Alex could feel his pulse banging in his head. “Are you fucking kidding me? So this is what, jealousy? Because I got out and you didn’t? You want me to get sent back?”

Jamie’s face was more serious than Alex had ever seen it. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes — old anger that had burned for so long it became something smooth and perfect, sand turned to glass. “No Alex, I want you to understand that we all haven’t had the easiest time of it. We aren't all someone’s pet student or charity case. And if selling some coke was your only way out, you know you would have done it.”

“There are other ways off the island, Jamie.”

“For you, yeah. Not for the rest of us. How do you think it felt, Alex? How do you think it felt getting left behind?”

“Was I supposed to hang around?” Alex asked, stepping closer to his brother. The taller man glared down at him. “If you were offered a way out, you know you would have taken it. Anyone would have. And I may have had help getting here, but I worked my ass off the whole time, and you fucking know. Don’t use my luck to excuse your laziness. Get out of my apartment.” He made a wave at his brother that was supposed to look dismissive, but probably just looked like a flail. “I’m done with your bullshit.”

Jamie grabbed the drugs, picked up his bag, and left.

Alex stood there for a while, seething. After a moment he sank onto the couch in exhaustion. The anxiety was still moving through his veins like poison and the argument cycled through his head.  _ If selling some coke was your only way out, you know you would have done it. _

The problem was, he wasn’t sure Jamie was wrong. What would Alex have done if there was no one there to give him a break? What would Alex have done if it was Jamie who moved and he was the one left on the island?

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself. He got up, grabbed his coat, and walked out the door. He had to find Jamie. He was either going to strangle him or beg for forgiveness, he thought as he stepped out into the New York night. He’d decide on the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what black clothing is to Dolley.


	14. Thomas Is Invited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for suicidal ideation

The countryside rolled by, and Thomas was bored.

“How far to the conference?” he asked, not for the first time that hour.

James, eternally the patient one, answered again. “We’ve got another three hours. I think living in the city spoiled you.”

Thomas made an immature little grumbling sound, but didn’t say anything. He glanced down at his phone. Alex had sent him a picture.

Expecting a meme or some other anthropological record of Burr’s habits, Thomas frowned when his phone brought up a blurry image of an envelope.

**?**

The three dots jumped and Alex’s response sent a shiver down Thomas’s spine.  **You got a letter from California. Paper feels expensive. Want me to open it?**

**Yeah.**

A clearer image of ivory paper with pressed borders came to view.

**Guess your wedding invitation finally arrived.**

Thomas let out a little scoffing laugh.

“What is it?” James asked.

“Brandon has invited me to his wedding, which is in…” he squinted at the screen, “three weeks.”

James frowned. “That’s really short notice. California?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, leaning back in James’s seat. “I think he held off on giving me mine. Probably doesn’t actually want me to go.”

“Do you want to go?”

“No, but I will.”

“Why?”

“To order the salmon and take advantage of the open bar. Also I’ve never been to California.”

“Good enough reasons, I guess. You gonna take Alex with you?”

Thomas shot a text to Alex, asking him about as much.

**Of course I’ll go.**

“Well,” Thomas said, casting an eye out the car and magically no longer bored, “should be an adventure.”

-/-

No matter how nice they are, Thomas noticed, hotel rooms always feel the same. 

Thomas was staring at the ceiling, the remains of his room service surrounding the bed in a circle so precise a passer by might have thought someone tried to summon his spirit using wine and steak and french fries.

He and Alex had been chatting most of the night, but Alex had gone quiet. Something about dishes. Thomas had brought a book with him, but realized a few chapters in that the new novel was, in fact, quite shitty. Being stuck away from home with nothing for entertainment but a bad book was a bit like a flaccid hostage situation.

And so he turned to the journal. The decision to pack it was a weird one -- he hadn’t thought he’d bother reading any of it, but couldn’t stand the idea of leaving it behind.

It was like an anti-teddy bear. He didn’t like the thought of leaving it alone with Alex. Not because he didn’t trust Alex, more like the radiating negativity on the thing felt like a mental assault on all that surrounded it. He didn’t want to leave that with Alex. He didn’t want to leave that with anyone.

But James wouldn’t be back from his meeting for a few more hours, and he really only had a handful of entries left.

_ I don’t want to be alive anymore. Anymore. That implies I really wanted to be alive in the first place. I just don’t want to feel anymore. I want to tuck myself away in the darkest corner of the world and be forgotten. Could you do that, baby? Could you just forget me? I just don’t want to exist. I’m so tired. _

Thomas sighed. He was sitting at the hotel room’s desk, flicking the cheap hotel-issued pen against the cheap hotel-issued notepad. Guilt and anger leapfrogged through his veins. Could he have helped her, he wondered? If she had reached out to him? Was he supposed to feel like he should have helped her?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure he’d ever mourned her. He wasn’t sure he really knew how. Maybe because he’d mentally buried her years ago. He didn’t know…

God, he was getting sick of this shit.

James came back eventually, tired, tie loose around his throat. A bit of wine and they went to bed.

-/-

The hotel landline rang.

Thomas blinked himself awake, the darkness of the room giving way slowly to James’s form reaching for the handset. “Hello?”

Thomas flicked on the light.

James flinched against the light, but his face didn’t relax. He handed Thomas the phone, “it’s John.”

“John?” Thomas questioned as he reached for the phone. “Hello?”

“Thomas!” John’s voice on the line was frantic. “Thank God. You need to come home now. I tried to call your cell phone, but you must’ve had it on silent. Alex was attacked. He’s in the hospital.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what room service is to people who can afford room service.


	15. Alex Gets Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: injuries, medial stuff (lots of medical handwaving -- sorry to anyone in the medical industry about my likely inaccurate portrayals of hospitals)

Alex felt like death.

No, death probably felt like nothing.

He felt like the concept of dying. 

He'd never been a particularly healthy person -- wasn't blessed with health at birth, and an impoverished childhood in a wet, hot place did little to help things. Then there was that time, with his mother. This wasn't like that time. Or maybe was, a little.

The pain was different, but he still felt like he was floating. Still had the knowledge that the only thing between him and oblivion was his small, sickly, shitty, frail, broken body.

He became aware of the fact that he was in a hospital room. Then he noticed someone was holding his hand. Then he saw Thomas.

"Mmmm?" he asked.

"Oh, shit, god," Thomas's eyes were bright with unshed tears, "you're awake. Can you hear me, baby?"

"Mmmm?"

"You were attacked," Thomas said. "Do... do you remember what happened?"

Now that he mentioned it, Alex could vaguely recall the idea of someone (or someones) beating the shit out of him. Recalling it was a bit like recalling his mother's last days. Apparently he'd become so adept at burying his memories that his brain did it automatically ... or perhaps it had something to do with the heavy pain killers he was certain he was on.

He stroked Alex's cheek with the gentleness traditionally reserved for butterfly wings and flower petals. The touch was so light that when Thomas withdrew his fingers, it left an uncomfortable tingling sensation on Alex's skin. He moved to wipe it away, but was stopped by a sudden pain ripping up his arm. 

He looked down and saw his body, wrapped in a hospital gown and tucked under a hospital blanket. The parts of him he could see were largely wrapped in bandages and caked in plaster by someone who'd tried to put his body back together. All the way from his elbows down to...

"I... I ... Thomas," he choked, staring down at the cast enclosing his right arm from forearm to fingers, "my hands!" His gaze was jumping frantically between the cast on his right and the bandages enclosing his left.

"I know baby, I know... it'll be okay, we can help you get your work done while it heals."

Alex could barely hear him. "I... Thomas I need my hands!"

"The doctor said it'll heal in a few weeks. It was just a few fractures, but they had to operate, so they put it in a cast. It'll be okay! I promise!"

"But if I can't write, then I can't do anything and I'll lose my job and I'll get behind in school and what day is it how long was I out... I... I..."

"It'll be fine babe, you need to calm down," Thomas looked over his shoulder. "Nurse!?"

"What happened I need to know and they got away and oh god Thomas I need my laptop I can't do this I don't have time for this I... oh my god what about Ned?!"

At some point a woman in purple scrubs appeared in his peripheral vision, and everything went kind of dark. Then it all went very dark.

-/-

Being hospitalized, Alex learned, was like doing an inventory of your friends.

Over the course of the next few days, everyone he knew and/or cared about stopped by. John brought books and extra clothes and his laptop. Laf snuck in food. Herc brought flowers. Some afternoons, his room was so full he felt like he'd inadvertently become the host of a new club. Even Burr showed up one day with a get well card bearing a mess of signatures he barely recognized. Washington's stood out, clean and sharp and likely straight from his fountain pen. There was no message accompanying it.

Despite everyone's -- from his teachers to his bosses to his clients to his accountants -- assurance that he didn't need to worry about anything and he just needed to focus on healing from his (as the doctor put it,  _ extensive _ ) injuries, he was determined to get his shit done.

The fact that he couldn't write or type was incidental.

Everyone volunteered some time to helping him type up his numerous writing projects. There always seemed to be a friendly face at his bedside, laptop at the ready. He suspected there was a Google calendar involved somewhere.

At first, Thomas had offered up his services as secretary, but they were rarely able to make it more than a paragraph or two into one of Alex's blog posts before some sort of fight broke out, so he was relegated to flowers and kisses duty.

Ned took the news well, which made it worse. A smile and a "I'll find another donor, please don't worry about me." As if it was possible for Alex not to worry. As if his sudden inability to help his friend maybe brother wasn't like a final kick to the stomach after every other blow he'd taken.

He’d visit quite a bit, taking his turn as scribe. He’d decided the best way to comfort Alex was to recount stories about their childhood. 

“Do you remember that cat?” he’d said one day, feet propped up on the hospital bed, laptop perched precariously on his lap.

“Which one?” Alex asked. “There were a few."

“The one that just sort of decided to move in with us? The really mangy one.”

“The ginger?”

“Yeah.”

“I remember him. Never really got well again, but kicked around forever — he was still living with them when I left.”

“Yup. The vet kept telling Mum that he was just allergic to air and there was no way to get his fur soft, but she tried everything anyway.”

“Oh, yeah,” a memory bubble up in Alex’s mind, “remember when she tried that fish oil shit?”

Ned smiled. “And the house smelled like the fish monger’s for a week.”

“Oh God,” Alex’s nose scrunched up at the memory, “and it was summer.”

Ned laughed. “We grew up in a fucking oven. I don’t know what she was thinking.”

“God, that was an ugly-ass cat.”

“That’s what everyone was thinking. Mum probably though he was cute. She always had a soft spot for things with nowhere to go — you know she sometimes called the cat Alex junior?”

“Hmm?”

“She said he reminded her of you… lost and sick and loud,” he pulled out his phone, still smiling fondly at the memory.

Alex’s face felt cold.

“Knock knock,” Dolley said, walking in with a box from the bakery. “I’ve come to submit my wrists to Alex’s needs.”

“You need to work on making your euphemisms a bit more tidy,” Ned quipped, groaning as he stood. “Guess this means I need to go back to the hospital… well, the other hospital. See you, Alex.” And then he left.

“Euphemisms don’t need to be tidy,” Dolley said to his retreating form. Her face fell when she looked back at Alex. “You alright there, hun?”

“Hmm? Yeah,” Alex said, looking out the window. “I’m fine.”

“_Riiiiight_,” Dolley drew the word out as she set her bag down and swooped into the chair Ned had just vacated. Her perfume whooshed over Alex as she tucked her petticoated skirts into place, citrus and maybe something floral. “So what are we lecturing the internet on today?” she asked as she opened the laptop.

“Income inequality.”

“Oooooh, sounds zesty. Lets.” She perched her neon green fingernails over the keyboard. “Lay it on me, money man.”

The article he’d already written in his head flowed from his lips with little mental intervention, which was good because his thoughts were still wrapping themselves around what Ned had said.

He’d spent his childhood thinking the best part of being rich was having nice stuff. In his teens, he learned it was actually getting to not care.

That was his problem, he knew. The reason why he would never really fit in with the truly wealthy. Alex always cared. He always cared a lot.

-/-

The pain was always there, a little. No matter how many meds they gave him. And it didn't help that he didn't want too many meds because then he got all foggy and that made the already tortuous process of dictating his work load that much more like pulling off fingernails.

And Jamie was gone. No one had heard from him. Someone had suggested reporting him missing, but Alex had waved the idea away -- well, figuratively. Involving the police was the last thing Alex wanted. No, he was content to simply never see the man again. He was sure the next time he'd see his brother's face it would be a grainy photo above the scanned obit some well meaning distant relative would send him from some obscure island or major city. Who knew where Jamie Hamilton went?

But when he stared at the ceiling in agony in the middle of each night, surrounded by cheap curtains and florescent lights and machines that measured things he probably didn't want to know about, he thought about his brother.

Imagined where he was -- Mexico, like their father? Back to the Carribean? Surely there was some island out there he'd managed not to fuck everything up on. Or maybe he was elsewhere in the States, committing some sort of felony. Probably driving in a stolen car. Yeah, that sounded like him.

And Alex imagined Jamie learning about his baby brother. Learning that he'd run out after him into the night and after -- fuck, how long had it been? -- after seven goddamned years in New York the first time he ever got mugged was when he was running after Jamie's sorry ass. To apologize, and ask him to come back inside. To help him. Because Alex was a good brother, despite the lack of demonstrations in how exactly one goes about being a good brother.

In his mind, Jamie was always cowed by his lecture. Always begging forgiveness. 

And Alex, of course, gave it.

Maybe he'd become a stoic. He'd been reading articles about stoicism and figured it was worth giving a shot. Use this as a launching point for the next phase of his life. Let stuff just slide off his back. Start a new blog about it or something.

He'd usually be thinking about article ideas when a nurse would come in, a button would be pushed, and he'd have morphine or something in his veins then fall into a lovely sort of fuzziness and it would all go black and then it would be tomorrow.

About a week into his hospital stay, he had a dream about his brother. It was a boring dream, really. James was just sitting there, in the shitty old chair by the bed, the one John sat in when he typed Alex's blog posts and Thomas sat in when he chatted about his day in a desperate bid to normalize their current situation.

Alex just looked at him. Weird. Usually people in his dreams spoke first. 

"Oh, Alex," his brother's voice was soft. He didn't like that. "You're up. How... how're you feeling?"

"Wha... what are you doing here?"

The room was barely lit, but Alex could still see his brother flinch. "I wanted to see you. I wanted to..." 

Maybe it was the normalcy of the conversation, or the pain in his hand, or in his ribs, or his ankle, or whatever fucky shit was going on with his stomach, or the headache pinching at his neck, but Alex realized he wasn't dreaming.

"How did you even get in?" he asked, cutting his brother off.

Jamie smiled weakly. "Immediate family members are allowed to visit at any time."

And some part of Alex got angry at hospital policies and the fact that his best friend and boyfriend weren't allowed in his room past 8 pm but this virtual stranger who was at least partly responsible for this whole mess got to sit in the dark Edward Cullen style and bother Alex's poor, sleeping self.

"Right," Alex said. Because he wasn't dreaming and was going to start that whole stoic thing really soon and therefore should practice taking the high road like Thomas. "So," he tried to keep his voice casual. Mostly he just sounded dehydrated.

Jamie poured him a glass of sad, gross, stale hospital water from the little jug at his bedside and went through the unfortunate ritual of giving a bedridden person something to drink.

"So..." he continued a minute later, wishing his arms were working so he could wipe the drips of water that were starting to make his chin itch... and really hoping his brother couldn't see them and wouldn't try to dab them away in some kind gesture that would be the bullet in the head of his last shred of dignity. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I... I wanted to apologize, for... for everything. God, Alex," his voice broke, a little. "I'm so sorry." His head was in his hands. "I'm so, so sorry."

"For what? The drugs?"

"Those," Jamie said, "and..." he trailed off.

Alex let the silence fall, staring at the weeping man at his side. His new, patient, stoic persona probably wouldn't press someone who was making a middle of the night bedside confession, so he figured he shouldn't either. But Jesus he wanted Jamie to get on with it so he could get on with the forgiveness and tiny, articulate barbs that would make his wayward older brother rethink his life choices.

"And..." Jamie continued after a pause, "and for what happened in that alley."

Alex frowned, which hurt some part of him he couldn't quite identify. His pain was starting to just be sort of generic. "That wasn't your fault, Jamie," he said. Even though, yeah, it sort of was. But he was doing the forgiveness thing now and whatever.

"It was, though. It really was. The... the people who did it? They were there waiting for me. They were supposed to beat me up. You... you followed, me, remember? Down that street? They were waiting, but I turned into a different alley you didn't see and they just... they jumped you and they were on you before I could do anything and it was all so fast..."

"Wait..." Alex felt his whole hurting body heat up. The memories he'd been working back started to come slightly more into focus. "Wait... you... you left me there? You... you knew what they were going to do, what they were doing... and you fucking left me there?"

"There was nothing else I could do! By the time I knew what was happening, it was already too late. There wasn't anything I could have done!"

"Some random passing kid was the one who called the ambulance. I know because his mom brought me flowers," Alex jerked his head (one of the three parts of his body he could usually move without eliciting pain). "So... you didn't even call an ambulance?"

"What? No, I did. I just didn't want to be there when they arrived because... yeah, so..."

"So you left me there. Jesus Christ," he let his head fall into the pillows. "If I had working arms I'd do their work for them. And why the fuck do you already have people in back alleys waiting to jump you, anyway? You've been here like a month."

"Keep your voice down, please," Jamie said, crouching down in his chair as if he were some animal hiding from a lion in tall grass. "It's the middle of the night."

"You're the one who decided to come here at fuck o'clock. And I'm fairly sure I get to be upset. You left me to bleed out in an alley after I took a beating that was meant for you're sorry, pathetic ass. And you didn't answer my goddamned question. What the fuck did you do? Who were they?"

"I owed them money."

"Of course you did."

"I'm not proud of any of this, Alex. I know what happened was my fault."

"Yeah, Jamie. It was your fault. Oh my god, how could you even... you ruined everything! Everything. Now I'm behind in work and school and my bills are going to fucking ruin me and Ned's going to die and it's all your fucking fault."

"Wait, wait. Ned? Ned Stevens?"

Alex nodded, glad to have another thing to throw at Jamie. "Yeah. Turns out he's my brother. And he needs a bone marrow transplant and I was a match. I was going to help him but now all my bones are broken and they can't do the procedure. So you should probably apologize to him too."

"Wait, wait," Jamie waved his hands around. "You're brothers? You... you did a DNA test or something?"

"Well," the sudden stop of his indignant rant made the words all catch in his throat, and he had to clear it to answer, "not a DNA test, but I'm a marrow match, which means there's a decent chance..."

"So maybe there's a decent chance I could be a match too?"

The thought had never occurred to him. "I mean... I doubt it."

"What?" The humor in Jamie's voice was cold, colder than he'd ever heard it. "You don't think I'm good enough to be Thomas Stevens' bastard son?"

"C'mon, Jamie. And I'm supposed to be the one who's angry here. Not you. I'm the one with the injuries and the flowers and the little pain button," he cocked his hand at his little pain button, "not you. You didn't even like Ned."

"I like Ned fine. I don't want him to die, that's for sure. Look," he stood up. "I'm sorry, okay? I fucked up. And I'm a coward. And Ned's a better brother for you anyway. But I'm going to try to fix this, alright? I'm going to try."

"Don't bother," Alex snapped. "You'll just make another mess for me to clean up. Just leave me alone. Call John and he can get you the stuff you forgot to take that night. I'm done with you. Leave me alone. Stop fucking things up for me."

Jamie looked like he was going to say something, but decided against it. He left, briefly illuminating Alex's sad little room with light from the hospital hallway before the door closed.

A nurse came in a bit later, gave him something, and the fog rolled in and he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what indignant rants are to Alex.


	16. Thomas Makes an Investment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of drugs and injuries. And more medical handwaving.

Thomas tapped the top of the suitcase at his side, making sure for the fifteenth time in as many minutes that the cheap, worn carry-on was still there. He still didn't trust New York, not really. When first he'd moved there, he'd been convinced that every crowd contained a million and one expert pickpockets who would be able to magic away all his worldly goods with some sort of evil telekinesis.

The cafe he and Jamie had agreed to meet in was a fairly nice one, though. Thomas had picked it carefully -- just bourgey enough that it wouldn't feel like a back alley deal getting his stuff back to him, but not so fancy it hinted at any particular affluence on Thomas's part. He was still being dutifully silent on the topic of his own net worth -- always careful never to say anything that would tip Jamie off. It felt sort of stupid, though. He was sure that there was enough hints left over from his childhood that anyone truly paying attention would be able to clock him.

And he got the feeling Jamie was always truly paying attention.

Jamie arrived six minutes late.

“Hey, thanks for bringing this out to me."

"Of course," Thomas said. He'd been surprised by the text, sent in the middle of the night. He had no clue why Alex's brother didn't want to just come back to the apartment to get his stuff, but he wasn't necessarily going to encourage that option.

They sat, staring at each other in discomfort. 

"So..." Jamie began after a while. "How's... how's Alex doing?"

"He's doing," Thomas said. "You know you can visit him whenever you like, right?"

Something flashed in Jamie's eyes, something that made a nervous ripple run up Thomas's spine. His response came a bit too late to be natural: "We... uh, we had a bit of a fight shortly before... what happened. I think seeing me might be somewhat upsetting for him."

Thomas bit his lip, holding back the polite response, which was to reassure Jamie that his brother would be happy to see him no matter what. Alex had seemed off that morning, more off than usual. He was on his way back to the hospital right after this little drop-off. He wasn't sure how Alex actually would have responded to seeing his brother. Maybe it would be better if they stayed separate.

"Ah," he said, "I see."

"Yeah, so..." Jamie looked to the side.

"So what are you doing now, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I was actually planning on moving away, heading down to Mexico to see Dad, but there's a few things getting in the way of that."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I, uh, I took out a loan from a friend to help with some of the living expenses when I was setting things up for myself, and I need to pay that off before I can go anywhere."

Thomas frowned. "Right. Do you have, like..."

"A job?" There was a playful, self-depreciating quirk to Jamie's lip charming enough that Thomas couldn't help but smile in response. "Yeah, but it doesn't pay great and rent around here is pretty bad, you know? And I don't think Alex wants me around anymore. I'm sick of bothering him, especially with everything that's happened. So I just want to get out of the city, go help Dad. We talked the other day and his back is starting to act up, so..."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Thomas said, because that’s what you say.

"Thanks. Either way, it's going to be a bit of a mess, trying to get over to him in time. It'll probably be quite a while before I can pay that loan off."  
"That sucks, man."

"Yeah. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up on rent while I do it, but the friend... well, he's not so much a friend as an acquaintance... I'm sort of worried he might try to get a repayment before I can manage it. So, like, if that happens... god," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sick of this place. But if it does... do you think Alex would still be okay with me crashing on your couch a few times? I hate asking, but I'm running out of options."

Thomas bit his lip. "If you don't mind me asking, how much is the loan?"

Jamie sat back in the cafe chair. "It's pretty embarrassing."

"I promise I won't judge you. I've been in a shitty financial situation before, too. Your brother was actually the one who got me out of debt."

_ Well, his help and my mother's untimely demise. _

"Really?" Jamie laughed, rich and complex as semi-sweet chocolate. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because that's not surprising."

"Did I ever tell you about that time he chased me around the house with a can of spagettios, shouting about grocery bills and inflation?"

"No, but he did once pour a can of Coke on my lap while lecturing me about store brands and zero-sum budgeting."

"Same energy," Jamie nodded. "Either way, I owe the guy fifteen thousand, give or take."

"That's... a lot of money," Thomas said, lamely. Because of course it was.

To just about everyone but him.

"Yeah," Jamie agreed, studying the table. "So it's probably going to be a few years before I can pay it off... then there's the interest."

"Your friend is charging you interest?"

"If I don't get it back within a year, yeah."

But at that point he was barely paying attention. His head was crunching numbers, putting the situation through some social calculus, figuring out the risks, the benefits involved. 

He solved for _ y _ and continued, "I think I might be able to help you a bit."

And then Jamie gave him a bright-eyed, hopeful smile, and Thomas knew all was lost.

After about fifteen minutes of negotiation, broken up with _ you really don't need toos _ and _ of course I'll helps _, the agreement was made that Thomas would give him the money, no strings attached, Jamie would try to get to Mexico sooner rather that later (and a vague promise was made that Thomas could help him with the process of actually getting to Mexico). 

And Thomas went to the hospital feeling guilty for breaking his promise to Alex (if Jamie hadn't known Thomas was rich before, knowing he had enough money to toss fifteen grand on the flaming dumpster fire that was Jamie Hamilton's life was a pretty damn good indication) and relieved that Jamie would soon be thousands of miles away from his couch.

Alex as lying in his bed, dictating something to John, who was typing as fast as he could to keep up with the flow of words.

"Thomas," John said, shaking his wrists out. "How's it going?"

“Good," Thomas said with a weak little smile. "He managed to kill you with typing yet?"

"Kill isn't the word I'd use," John said, "more like maim or permanently scar."

"Ya'll are just weak," Alex rolled his shoulder and winced. Thomas felt his chest tighten. Seeing him like this was so many types of wrong. "British John is coming by soon, so he should be able to help too. Don't want to break you."

John gave him a sour face. Alex started laughing, which turned into coughing, which turned into wheezing. Thomas and John both charged forward, armed with water, but Alex shook his head. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

They retreated. "I was about to get us some coffee," John said, "you want anything?"

"No thanks," Thomas said, sinking into the chair at Alex's side. 

Alex watched John leave, then turned to Thomas. "You alright? You look a little off."

Thomas had already made the decision not to tell Alex about the money he'd had wired to his brother, so he just tossed on a smile. "I'm fine. How're you feeling?"

"Like absolute shit. Like I probably look."

"You look --" Alex gave him a glare, "yeah you kinda look like shit. But I still love you. And the doctors say you'll make a full recovery so one day you will no longer look like shit."

"Maybe I'll even come out of all this with a debonair scar or too. Look nice and dashing for you. I'll have to come up with a cool story for it, though. Can't just tell someone I accidentally took a beating on behalf of my brother."

Thomas's stomach dropped. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The people who jumped me? They were actually there for my brother. He told me about them last night when he visited. They were waiting for him and grabbed me and he just left me there to fucking die. Probably something about the drugs I found in my apartment the night it all happened. I kicked him out and said I never wanted to see him again. He was supposed to call John to get his stuff." Alex gave his account with the cheerful, vapid grin he sometimes wore. The one that was always a better indication of distress than tears or anxiety attacks.

"I'm sorry, _what_?"

"Yup," Alex nodded, eyes trained on the middle distance, "yup yup yup."

"Alex," Thomas sat up, "I think I just accidentally financed a drug deal."

  


-/-

  
  


"You're sure you don't want to report it, or try to recall it, or do anything?"

John and British John were leaning against the wall, semi-silent observers of the couple's crisis management session.

"No," Alex said, clenching and unclenching the fist that had had its bandages removed that day. He had the little physical therapy packet resting in his lap and was trying to replicate the pictures on it. "I don't want to actively get him in trouble. I'll pay you back, of course."

Thomas waved a hand. "You don't need to worry about that."

"Alright," Alex said, looking more tired than he'd ever looked. An accomplishment, that. "I guess I won't."

"So let me get this straight," British John said, shrugging off the wall. "You," he pointed to Thomas, "gave this bloke fifteen thousand dollars about an hour ago, even though you," he pointed to Alex, "told him not to."

"Well," Alex said, "I told him not to let Jamie know he was rich. Which was stupid of me. Asking Thomas not to appear rich is like asking rice not to appear white."

Thomas made a face at Alex. Alex ignored it, though he smiled a little.

John cocked an eyebrow. "You do know rice comes in lots of different colors, right?"

"And you do know how many drugs I'm on at the moment, right?"

"Fair enough," John leaned back. "So what do you think are the odds of this coming back to bite you in the ass? Like, legally, or physically? Do we need to move move to a different apartment or something? Should I be worried?"

Alex sighed. "I don't know. I think it'll be okay. Last night he was talking about how he was going to fix everything. But I don't know if Jamie's fixed a thing in his entire life."

"Right," John pinched the bridge of his nose. "I guess we'll just take that one day at a time. You sure you don't want to involve the police?"

"We don't know for a fact that he's doing anything illegal with the fifteen grand," Thomas pointed out. "And the shit was in our apartment so we could get caught up in it. Cops might not take our word for it, either, especially since I just gave him a lot of money."

British John let his head fall against the wall. "Jesus."

"That's a good point," John said. "Should we try to get in contact with him?"

"He hasn't been answering our calls or texts," Thomas said. "I'm not sure there's much we can do other than just wait. Maybe change the locks on the door."

Alex closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, guys. I'm the one who brought him home even though I knew it was a bad idea."

Thomas went to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, then stopped, looked over his boyfriend's body for a patch of skin that wouldn't immediately cause him pain, and, finding none, put his hand back in his lap. "You're a good brother, Alex, unlike him. And not getting the cops involved is probably a good idea, since I'm not sure I'll be able to stop myself if I ever see the fucker again. An assault charge is the last thing I need in my life."

Alex opened one eye and looked over at him, "please don't hurt him," he said weakly. "I don't want that."

"Why not? He fucked you over. He fucked me over."

"He fucked all of us over," John agreed, jaw tight.

"I'm trying this new thing where I stand above everything."

"You aren't that tall."

"Maybe the doctors will give me bionic legs."

"But I like your legs."

"I know, babe."

"I still want to punch him."

"I know, babe."

Thomas sighed. "So what can we do?"

"Nothing," Alex said, "just sit here and feel superior and indulgent, I guess."

It wasn't really the answer Thomas wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what tossing 15 grand at problems is to rich people.


	17. Alex Gets Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't really think of any warnings, beyond this being in a hospital setting.

“How the fuck do you maintain this sort of work schedule?” British John asked, shaking out his hand. “Like, seriously?”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know why you guys keep asking me that. What do you do all day? I mean, I know what Burr does…”

“Huh?” British John looked up from the shiny new MacBook perched on his lap.

“Oh shit,” Alex covered his mouth with his good -- well, better -- hand. “I forgot to tell you. Jesus Christ…”

“You can tell me now,” British John prompted, leaning forward.

“I can’t prove it, but I’m 98% sure he’s sleeping with that student you saw leaving the office. We found condoms in his trash can.”

“Shit,” British John laughed. “I fucking knew something was going on. That’s amazing. Doesn’t really matter, though. Not now. Fucker resigned.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“He quit this morning. That’s part of the reason why I came over here, but then you threw this shit at me and… well.” He shrugged.

“Why did he quit?”

“I don’t know,” British John said. “Everyone’s been very hush-hush about it. I asked Professor Jones, but he said he didn’t know anything, which is a damned lie. There’s a reason he’s a professor and not an actor, I guess.”

“That’s… can you open my email? My school one?”

“Uh, sure, you’ve… Jesus Christ, Alex.”

“I know, I know,” Alex said, craning his neck to see the screen. British John repositioned the laptop. “Click on the one from Washington, fifth from the top.”

British John did.

“There it is,” Alex said to himself, quietly. “ _ Personal reasons. _ What sort of bullshit is that?”

“Administrative bullshit. What do you think happened?”

“Affair got exposed? Actually was taking bribes? Decided to move to Japan? Could be a million things. Sorry your conspiracy didn’t pan out.”

British John shrugged. “I mean, him not working there is good enough. Sucks that Washington is out both of his interns, though.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, scanning the rest of the email. “I’ll have to delegate a lot of stuff. He says he’ll start interviews soon for new interns. Meanwhile…”

“I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“Thanks,” Alex said with a smile, wincing when the muscles in his arm instinctually moved to rub his eyes. “Thanks.”

-/-

“You really don’t need to do this,” Alex said, tense and annoyed. The constant train of smiling helpers was starting to get on his nerves. “You must be super busy.”

“So are all your other friends,” Ned said, the kind, patient, caring smile on his face. 

Alex was so fucking tired of smilies. Of everyone pretending everything was alright.

“Yeah,” Alex said, trying for a new angle. “But you’re sick.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

Ned let out a little sigh. “Do you not want me here, Alex? I can leave.”

Well now Alex just felt like a prick. He turned away. “That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

"For fuck's sake, Ned, would you stop being such a saint?” Alex snapped, turning to face Ned so quickly it tweaked something in his neck. “You're sick, it's scary. You should be angry at me. Why won't you just be angry at me?"

"How will that help?" Ned asked, closing the laptop and setting it aside.

"It isn't about helping, it's about not lying."

Ned frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I got hurt -- I know it isn’t my fault, but I got hurt. I was reckless with my health and now you don’t have a donor anymore. How are you not angry at me?”

Ned scoffed, rueful smile coming to his face. "I can't believe you -- you're actually making my sickness about you. You think I’d be mad at you? Why? And what would that change? Why are you bringing this up?”

“Because I’m tired of everyone acting like what happened is fine. I’m tired of everyone trying to solve all these problems I caused because I’m a fucking idiot. I’m sick of being babied like this.”

Ned rolled his eyes. “If you’re sick of being babied, then why did you do the dangerous thing -- no, never mind, ignore me. That was uncalled for.”

“I’d say it was called for,” Alex said.

“Why do you always need to stir up shit, Alex? You’ve always been like this. It’s like you install all the buttons just so you can push them. Even when we were kids.”

“I was a messed up kid,” Alex agreed.

Ned narrowed his eyes. “Do you have something to say to me?”

“No.”

“Bullshit. You have something to say to everyone.”

And it just fell out. “Jesus Christ — I’m not a fucking machine, Ned! I have feelings! How do you think I felt when you left? Or even when you took me in? All those looks. You’re like my rich twin. It wasn’t fair.”

Ned blinked at the new direction of the conversation. “You’re mad we took you in?”

Alex groaned. “No — I’m mad I wasn’t born rich. I’m mad my brother’s an idiot and my father’s useless. I’m mad my mum died and I couldn’t stop it. I’m mad people looked at you and saw everything I didn’t have.”

“That’s not what they —”

“That’s what I saw! And then this —”

“Doesn’t every orphan dream they’re secretly part of a rich family?” Ned cut in, voice unkind for the first time Alex could remember. “Isn’t this some sort of dream come true? Ugly duckling, never fitting in? Jamie and your dad aren’t your problem if they aren’t your blood.”

Any other day, his words would have cut Alex to his bone. But he was beyond that. 

"You think I'm just going to ditch them? Why does everyone think I'm going to do that?"

“Because you  _ fucking did. _ You left him behind when you got a chance to go to America.”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“What else was  _ I  _ supposed to do? Was I supposed to wait for you? It’s not my fault I was born into money, like it’s not my fault you weren’t. Were we all supposed to cross the Atlantic together, holding hands?”

“I don’t know, alright? I don’t know. Just ignore me. I’m a mess. I just… just go.”

And Ned did.

Thomas came by half an hour later, and Alex was still curled up on his side, trying to ignore the tear tracks on his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what "personal reasons" are to administrative folks trying to gloss over juicy shit.


	18. Thomas Goes to the Coast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of mental health issues.

“I still haven’t figured out what sort of liquor they put in these,” Aunt Shannon said, twirling the drink in its glass, California sun streaming through.

“Probably only a drop, anyway,” Thomas said, taking another sip. “Just tastes like lemonade.”

“And yet the young lady who handed it to me actually carded me.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m going to pretend I  _ did not  _ hear the surprise in your tone, young man.”

Thomas smiled, eyes dropping to the table. He was trying to figure out if the drop of wine that had stained their tablecloth looked more like Australia or the Black Sea. “The sprig of lavender is cute though.”

“Oh,” Aunt Shannon said, waving her hand around. “It’s all very cute. I feel like I’m trapped in a lifestyle magazine.”

The brilliantly arranged flowers, the perfectly placed lanterns and tables and centerpieces all coordinated to match the white-blue-white-white color scheme was, Thomas had to admit, stunning. And he and Aunt Shannon had been able to snag a table in the corner after the ceremony ended, so it wasn’t too bad.

And the bar was, after all, an open one.

“I can’t believe they did their own vows,” Thomas said, probably for the fifth time that afternoon.

“They sent them to me for critiquing, too,” Aunt Shannon said. “They were each four pages long. Four pages. And I had to go to the rehearsal.”

“The cost of being the family matriarch. I do hope you keep such uncharitable thoughts to yourself when I make you officiate my wedding.”

Aunt Shannon tossed him a wry look. “Is that something that I should be anticipating in the near future?”

“Nah,” Thomas said. “I doubt it. Not  _ near _ future, anyway.”

She smiled. “Well, I’ll let you know that I’d be happy to fly as far as Williamsburg for the ceremony. Maybe even DC.”

“I could never ask so much of you.”

“Really, it’s no trouble. I’d even be willing to do it on the banks of the Potomec.”

“You spoil me.”

“Of course, of course, anything for my favorite nephew.”

Thomas laughed, eyes on the dance floor. Everyone in their immediate family was in attendance, despite Brandon’s supposed fears. Even his father looked like he’d managed to remove his stick from his ass and was laughing at something Emma had said.

Emma had been avoiding his eye all evening. Thomas decided against having any sort of problem with that.

“I’m going to go down to the beach,” he said after a moment. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Ah, well, I was planning on having a headache in five minutes, but that sounds preferable.” She tossed back the remainder of her dubiously alcoholic drink and stood, smoothing out the tidy lines of her skirt. “Lead the way, brave explorer.”

Thomas laughed, extending his arm and escorting her stealthily out the back door of the reception venue.

San Francisco in winter wasn’t precisely what Thomas had in mind for his first trip to Cali, but it was better than New York in winter, so he was enjoying the meh weather as best he could before going back east.

And no other members of the wedding party were down at the small strip of shoreline attached to the hotel, either.

“So how have you been, really?” Aunt Shannon asked. “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk.”

“I’ve been okay,” Thomas said. “School’s been hard, and then Alex got hurt…”

“You said he was out of the hospital, though?”

“Yeah, he got discharged right before I flew out. I still feel like shit for leaving him in New York, but he told me to go anyway. Felt obligated.”

“Well, you are officially a good cousin, how’s it feel?”

“Meh.” Thomas shrugged.

Aunt Shannon laughed.

“And I’m almost done with the journal,” he added.

There was a flicker of an expression on her face, but she soon smoothed it. “And how has that been?”

“A mess,” Thomas answered. “I’m seriously considering tossing the thing in the Pacific.”

She let out an awkward little laugh. 

“Did you ever want to read it?” Thomas asked. “It isn’t a pleasant read, but if you wanted to…”

Aunt Shannon was quiet for a moment, looking out at the grey sky and frigid water. “For a long time I did want to. Now? I’m not so sure. I… I don’t think so, no.”

Thomas frowned. “Why not?”

Aunt Shannon bit the edge of her nail, a nervous habit Thomas had only seen a handful of times. “I don’t think I need to know more about her. Not anymore. For the longest time, she was some mystery, it was… it was almost romantic, sad as that sounds. But now? She was sick. And we weren’t able to get her the treatment she needed. And one of her last actions in life was to ensure that her thoughts went to her son. If there’s anything she wrote that you want to talk about, I’m right here. But I don’t want to read it, not unless you specifically wish me to.”

“That’s… a very measured response.”

Aunt Shannon laughed. “Thanks, I’ve been stewing on it for months. So are you planning on doing that dramatic coming out thing you’d been considering? Let everyone know while you’ve got them all in one place? And also everyone your cousin knows?”

“Nah,” Thomas said, tone more casual than he felt, “feels a bit like stealing his thunder. There’s lots of holidays I can spice up later, if I want to.”

Aunt Shannon laughed. “How very measured a response.”

“I’ll do it when it’s time,” Thomas said. “Not sure when that time is, but…”

“There’s no real rush,” Aunt Shannon said, wrapping her arm around his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

Warmth spread through his chest despite the breeze coming off the water. “Thanks.”

“And I’m going to go inside. I’m freezing.”

“I’ll be in in a bit,” he said, staring out at the sea.

-/-

“This isn’t exactly walking season… or time,” Alex said, pressing himself against Thomas’s side as they made their way down the street.

“Nah, you’re just weak. It’s that thin tropical blood. No resilience.”

Alex muttered something against Thomas’s side that he was certain he would have taken considerable offence to were he able to hear it. He chose to ignore it, interlacing their fingers when Alex reached for his hand. He’d only just gotten the second cast off a week ago, and his fingers were still learning how to move again.

He’d also apparently forgotten to put on gloves.

“Seriously, though. It’s freezing.”

“Actually, I think it’s several degrees below freezing.”

“Fuck off.”

Thomas smiled. “We’re almost there.”

“I’d feel a bit better if I knew where we were actually going.”

“Where’s the adventure in that?”

“I have work to do. Hypothermia would be very inconvenient right now.”

“Blah blah blah… we’re here.” He leaned against the railing, enjoying the confused look on Alex’s face.

“The harbor? I’ve seen it before, you know. In daylight. In summer.”

“I had to do a thing.”

“What thing is that?”

Thomas pulled the journal out of his coat.

Alex’s frown was lit by the sickly orange of the street lamp. “I thought you’d finished it. You haven’t mentioned it in weeks. Why’d you bring it out here?”

Thomas looked out into the harbor -- the cold flickers of light in the waves, the light pollution making the sky look like a giant bruise -- and threw his mother’s journal into the sea.

“Oh,” Alex said, bringing his hands up to his mouth so he could blow on his fingers. “I see… so… uh … why?”

“My father went to Yale,” Thomas said, looking out at the water.

“Not  _ quite  _ where I thought that explanation was going to start.”

“My father went to Yale,” Thomas repeated, going off the script he’d in his head. “He’d bring it up annoyingly often. He always figured I’d follow in his footsteps, you know? Be a legacy? He didn’t really have much family, I think he was excited to leave that sort of thing behind, to open those doors for me.”

“But you didn’t go to Yale,” Alex said.

“My entire childhood, I wanted to. I planned to. I toured it when I was thirteen. But then Dad got sick and my grades slipped a bit and I dropped out of some extracurriculars and… things weren’t so certain anymore. Then it was time to start applying for colleges and I got scared. I didn’t want to let him down. So I didn’t even apply.”

“You didn’t apply?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know for a fact that I would have gotten rejected. To apply would have been to know. So I can walk around every day and say truthfully that I  _ could _ have gone to Yale. That it wasn’t impossible.”

“So… why the journal?”

“My mother’s final entry could have been a long apology. She could have explained that she did everything wrong. Could have told me that she loved me unconditionally. That she wanted to come back. It’s possible.”

“You never finished the journal?”

“I never finished the journal.”

“And you threw it into the ocean so you’d never be able to?”

“Yeah. Poetic, huh?”

“Why did you wait until now to do it? You haven’t mentioned the thing in weeks.”

“It’s my dad’s birthday today.”

“Okay…”

“Poetic.”

They stood there for a moment.

“Honestly?” Alex said, “that’s kind of dumb.”

“Fuck off.”

“Can we go home now?”

“Yeah.”

They walked away from the harbor, huddled close against the winter air. It was a while before the silence was broken between them.

Alex was the one to do it. “Thomas?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right? With absolute certainty?”

“I do.”

“Good.”

“What brought that on?”

“I was trying to be poetic, too.”

“You suck at it.”

“Fuck off.”

Thomas smiled, despite his chattering teeth. “Fuck off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what ill-timed dramatic gestures are to Thomas.


	19. Alex Gets Back to Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for brief (very brief) violence, injuries, and medial stuff.

“I’m just here to pick up my stuff.”

Alex stopped in the hallway. Was that Burr? What was he doing in the office?

It was Alex’s first day back. He’d been anticipating introducing himself to the new guy, not running into Aaron goddamned Burr.

“You didn’t get it last month? Seriously, what are you doing here?”  _ British John? _

“I forgot a few books. Didn’t notice they were missing until a few days ago. Just let me get them off the shelf and I’ll go.”

“Hey, Aaron,” Alex said as he walked through the door. “British John.”

British John, who’d long since become resigned to his name, gave Alex a nod of acknowledgement.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked.

“I swung by to get my things,” Burr said in a sweet, polite voice, looking at the shelf on the back wall. “I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

“Yes, Burr,” British John quipped from his temporary perch behind Alex’s desk, “just find your hollowed out book and get your money. Then let Alex start his day in peace.”

Burr turned around slowly, face as clear and smooth as that of a panther approaching its prey, “what did you just say to me?”

“I said, get your fucking bribe money and go. We’re done with you.”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Burr said, approaching the desk. “You were spreading all those fucking rumors? You’re the reason why the board dismissed me.”

“Wait,” Alex said, “what?”

But they were both ignoring him. 

“I knew you were up to something sketchy, Burr. Don’t fucking deny it.”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve made for me? Tossing around all these baseless accusations? Why did you-- what -- what the fuck is wrong with you?”

British John stood and moved to the other side of the desk. They were inches apart.

“Hey--” Alex interjected.

British John tossed up a dismissive hand to keep Alex away. “It’s trouble you deserve, you fucking--”

Burr lunged at him.

British John was barely able to keep himself up right as Burr cuffed him on the side of his face. He responded with a quick hook at Burr’s jaw.

“What the -- stop it!” Alex said, reaching between them to break up the fight. But his hand got caught in the movement of someone’s arm, and his whole body was tugged forward, ripping at some of his last stitches.

Alex let out a cry as pain ripped through his body.

British John and Burr stilled.

“Alex?” British John asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s my…” he looked down at his side, where a growing patch of red was spreading. “I… I think I need to go to the hospital.”

-/-

“Of all the gin joints…” Ned muttered as he repaired the stitches on Alex’s side.

“I was bleeding, didn’t exactly put in a request for a hospital,” Alex muttered.

Ned let out huffing laugh. “Alexander Hamilton? Not directing the charge? America has made you soft.”

Alex rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. They hadn’t spoken since their little tiff about a month earlier, and this certainly was how he’d imagined for their reunion.

“So…” he began awkwardly as Ned continued the task of repairing him like a torn seam in a shirt, “how have you been? With… everything?”

“Actually pretty good,” Ned replied. His tone was jovial and even as it had always been, like the argument never happened. And maybe  _ that _ was what Alex was most jealous of -- Ned never seemed to hold grudges. “Got a new donor lined up,” he added after a moment.

Alex felt one of the clouds in his inner sky lighten. “That’s great. Did you go through a donor directory or something?”

“No, actually,” Ned said, making that face people made when they were trying to figure out whether or not to share something. Scrunched up, eyes narrowed.

“Then who?” Alex pressed.

“I… your brother, he got in contact with me. Offered to take the test. And, well, I wasn’t going to say no, you know? And he was a match.”

A strange jolt moved through Alex’s body. “So he’s still here?”

“Yeah,” Ned said, avoiding Alex’s eye. “We’re doing the procedure in a little under a month. He’s going to stay in town long enough to recover, then he’s planning on moving down to Mexico to be with your dad. My family’s helping him with his finances in the meantime.”

Alex’s concerns about Jamie and what he might do with that money were on the tip of his tongue, but they never made it out into the world. He swallowed the words down as Ned applied a new bandage. And maybe, in that moment, the question he’d been asking himself for over a decade was answered. When it came down to it, direct contest, he’d choose Jamie over Ned.

And Jamie was a match.

“He’s become an... interesting person,” Ned commented. “I know you two got in a fight over something, but… I hope you can resolve it. Dude’s literally about to save my life, all that.”

“I…” Alex’s mind was too much of a jumbled mess to come up with a real response. “I guess. Maybe. He’s my brother. We always come around. Eventually. I don’t know…”

“Sometimes I miss the old days,” Ned mused, tossing his latex gloves and washing his hands in the small sink, “back before everything got all complicated, when we’d just hang out on the beach, go out on boats and shit.”

“I still can’t believe your parents bought you that stupid fucking row boat,” Alex said, grabbing his shirt.

“Hmmm?” Ned frowned. “My parents?”

“Yeah? Remember? That little dingy you got back when we were teenagers.”

“Oh, right. My parents didn’t buy that for me. I mean,” he added with a shrug, “I asked, but they said no.”

“So how’d you get the boat?”

“It was weird,” Ned laughed, nostalgic smile warming his face. “I never told anyone this story, because it sounds so strange. But mum asked me to go up to the attic to grab some old plates -- she was planning on donating them to a raffle -- and I found this old cigar box in a floorboard. I have no clue how long it was there. But it was full of cash. I figured the house’s previous owner put it there. I don’t know. Didn’t think too hard about it -- gift horse, you know? Either way, it was a couple grand, so I bought the boat, with it. Also got my girlfriend some stuff, oooh, was she  _ appreciative _ ,” he gave Alex a conspiratorial wink. “You okay?”

Alex’s face felt cold. He tried to force the words out multiple times, but he choked on them. Eventually he managed, “fine.”

“You don’t look great, do you need to lie down? You did lose some blood…”

“I… yeah, that sounds nice,” Alex said as he led Ned set him down on the examination bed.

“I’ll get you something to eat, be right back…” and he left.

_ Jesus Christ _ , Alex thought, head spinning.

Out of nowhere, one of the perhaps five pieces of pithy wisdom his father had bestowed on him during his brief tenure of paternity rang through the guilty typhoon brewing in Alex’s mind:  _ you know what they say about assumptions…. _

-/-

To say that Alex “had some catching up to do” was an understatement. If someone had dared utter those six words to him, he would have laughed in their face, then likely collapsed in a sobbing heap, recently healed (mostly) fingers still hacking away at the keys of his new laptop.

And maybe it did more for his ego than was strictly healthy that his extensive network of intelligent, educated, competent friends weren’t able to keep up with his work pace even when working on a brutal, rotating schedule. 

Either way, it felt good to be writing again.

He reached over to his cup. It was warm and full. He glanced up, Thomas was walking away, tossing a wink over his shoulder as he did so.

Alex smiled.

Laf had somehow convinced Thomas to cover a shift or two while Angelica was visiting England with British John.

And Alex wasn’t going to lie, he didn’t mind seeing him in that apron again.

But that was all the distraction he could afford, and he was back to hacking and slashing at his to do list with all the desperation of a lost explorer trying to find his way out of a jungle. Surely he’d see the sky again at some point.

At some point a pastry appeared at his side, with it a breeze that smelled like Dolley’s perfume.

And, of course, his coffee cup never emptied.

And he worked, and worked, and worked. Summoning thousands and thousands of words and sending them where they needed to go.

Someone sat across from him. “I’m sorry, sir. But we’re closing.”

Thomas was smiling like an idiot. He must have thought he was being very clever.

“I have an in with the owner,” Alex said, eyes returning to the screen.

“Weird. At one point, I was in the owner.”

Alex tossed a crumpled up napkin in his face. “Don’t be gross.”

“I’ll be as gross as I want, if it means you get off that thing. You promised you’d stop for the day once we closed. We’re all getting drinks to celebrate your recovery.”

Alex sighed and closed the laptop. He slipped it into his old laptop bag -- the sleek, thin thing looked tiny in the huge indented space left by its predecessor. “You know that the most important reason why I wanted to recover was so that I could  _ work _ right?”

“Oh, boo-hoo. Your stupid, endless to do list will be there in the morning. And by then you’ll have the excuse of being hungover.”

“You’re a terrible influence,” Alex said as Thomas locked the front door.

“I’m probably the only reason why you haven’t had a heart attack yet.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Fuck off.”

Thomas smiled. “Fuck off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what coffee is and will always be to Alex.


	20. Epilogue: Jamie Takes Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't really think of any warnings. For once.

Having grown up in the tropics, Jamie wasn’t an expert on the issue, but he was fairly sure springtime was supposed to be pretty.

Thomas and Alex were in the front seats of Thomas’s stupidly fancy car, bickering about some topic he truly could not get himself to care about, and he watched as a grey wasteland rolled by.

They’d offered to drive him to the airport, which he knew was one fourth gesture, three fourths insurance. It didn’t matter that he and Alex had made their peace while he was recovering from the transplant, his brother wanted him gone.

And really? Fair.

He wasn’t going to lie, either. The thought of leaving the brown slush and biting winds for his father’s tiny chunk of Mexico appealed to him just as much as his absence appealed Alex.

They said his name and it caught his attention, briefly.

“I just don’t get why you seem convinced that Jamie Fraser fits some ideal. I mean, sure, he’s hot. But he also straight up beats and rapes Claire. Even accounting for historical bullshit -- what the fuck?”

Ah, not talking to him, then.

“Okay, but if we’re looking at historical shit, does that mean that all men born before, say, 1969 are just, what? Irrelevant? No man from any point in history is worth loving?”

“I mean,” Alex said, “I have no intention of dating a man born before 1969.”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing you weren’t alive in the 18th century.”

“Right?” Alex laughed. “I’m sure someone would have shot me.”

“It is a daily temptation,” Thomas admitted. “Especially since you seem to be completely incapable of historical relativism.”

“Historical relativism is okay when you’re trying to figure out why some stupid haircut was popular for a few years or why people felt the need to make their clothes  _ that _ puffy, but it’s not, like a get out of jail free card for shitty behavior. Anyone with three brain cells knows that raping someone is wrong. Like, are we just going to excuse slavery? The Romans used to crucify people all the time. That okay? Burning women at the stake? Just an adorable quirk of an earlier time? Can we hold no one accountable?”

“Okay, but more historical relativism--”

“Which is useless.”

“-- which you appear to be incapable of understanding. The books were first published, like, thirty years ago. Even in that short period of time, mores have changed. Like, I think an editor would have cut a bunch of shit out if that manuscript was up for publishing today. Anyway, we’re here.”

Jamie trailed behind them as they continued their argument about whether or not it was moral to want to fuck some fictional 18th century man… or something. Sometimes Jamie figured their arguments were just like a weird, extended mostly socially acceptable foreplay.

But, eh, whatever made Alex happy.

“Security’s gonna be a bitch,” Jamie said as he rolled his carryon towards the line. “You should probably say here.”

Alex got that anxious look on his face, and Jamie suppressed a snort. He was fairly sure if the airline would allow it, Alex would follow him on to the plane and strap him into his seat himself.

“You’ve got everything you need?” Thomas asked.

“Jesus Christ, you do know I’m older than you two, right?”

“Well…” Thomas gave him a shrug that said a lot about his opinion on relative maturity.

Jamie just rolled his eyes, but bit his tongue. He was just a few hours away from a sandy beach, a drink, and a tan.

Alex hugged him. Jamie wrapped his arms around his little brother, maybe just a bit too tight and a bit too long, but who cared?

“I am gonna miss you, Alex,” he said as they pulled apart. And that wasn’t a lie. He ruffled Alex’s hair, laughing as his hand was batted away. “And I’m really proud of you, for what it’s worth.”

A slight flush came to Alex’s cheeks. “Yeah, well… take care of yourself, okay? And Dad? And call me when you get there so I know you’re safe?”

“I will. Thomas?”

“Mmmm?” Thomas had stepped away to give them some privacy.

“Break my baby brother’s heart and I’ll fly back to New York just to rip your balls off, alright?”

“Sounds fair,” he said with a little smile.

“Cool, well, guess it’s time for me to go,” Jamie said as he started rolling his luggage away.

He thought he heard something behind him, and turned around, waiting for whatever last-minute declaration it was they had for him before he fled the country.

“I can’t believe you legitimately think that we get to project 21st century ideals on pre-21st century cultures. That’s insane.”

“What’s insane is being so patronizing as to think that people just  _ didn’t know better. _ Of course they fucking knew better! People always knew this shit was fucked up, there just wasn’t much organized dissent, or fighting it was too difficult. That isn’t a fucking pass you fucking shitgoblin!”

Jamie rolled his eyes and headed toward the security gate, fighting the little smile on his lips.  _ Fucking nerds. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are to me what imagining warm beaches is to Jamie.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who stuck around for this little sequel! I appreciate you guys so much!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are to me what coffee is and always will be to Alex.


End file.
